PODs for a popular, very successful Bush Administration

9/11 doesn't happen or is stopped. Without that excuse/trauma (depending on your side of the aisle), a lot of the excesses of the Bush years probably wouldn't happen.
 
9/11 doesn't happen or is stopped. Without that excuse/trauma (depending on your side of the aisle), a lot of the excesses of the Bush years probably wouldn't happen.
Bush 43 is remembered first and foremost for his foreign legacy. If you butterfly 9/11 and thus all the use of political capital that resulted from that you have a more domestically focused administration.
 
Bush 43 is remembered first and foremost for his foreign legacy. If you butterfly 9/11 and thus all the use of political capital that resulted from that you have a more domestically focused administration.

Except that 9/11 had NOTHING to do with Iraq, although he pretended it did. So, no 9/11 probably means he goes into Iraq with even fewer excuses and to even more blame.
 
Except that 9/11 had NOTHING to do with Iraq, although he pretended it did. So, no 9/11 probably means he goes into Iraq with even fewer excuses and to even more blame.
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect it empowered the neocon wing fairly significantly; without 9/11 emphasizing foreign policy and the Middle East, Iraq might never make the jump from "something we'd like to do sometime" to "let's do this thing!" It's still possible, but less of a priority compared with domestic policy concerns.

Katrina is pretty easy to butterfly away; weather is very susceptible to butterflies (it's where the term came from, after all), so it's quite possible that an earlier, unrelated POD would also spare New Orleans on its own.

Of course, you still have the issue that the Bush administration was largely ideologically bankrupt and filled with incompetent hacks, but maybe they get lucky?
 
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect it empowered the neocon wing fairly significantly; without 9/11 emphasizing foreign policy and the Middle East, Iraq might never make the jump from "something we'd like to do sometime" to "let's do this thing!" It's still possible, but less of a priority compared with domestic policy concerns.
I wonder if you had no 9/11 there was anything that Bush planned but was never able to even consider pursuing domestically.
 
Except that 9/11 had NOTHING to do with Iraq, although he pretended it did. So, no 9/11 probably means he goes into Iraq with even fewer excuses and to even more blame.

Well, Bush apparently wanted to invade Iraq even before 9/11, according to his 1st Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but 9/11 gave a good excuse...

And yes, 9/11 didn't have anything to do with Iraq, but he was able to convince most of the American population due to tying it with 9/11. Other countries didn't really buy into that, though...

So if 9/11 never happens, he wouldn't be able to invade Iraq because he wouldn't have as good of an opportunity to persuade the American public into supporting the invasion, let alone foreign countries (they weren't that convinced OTL, even with the post-9/11 good will and willingness to fight in Afghanistan).
 
Top