alternatehistory.com

"Please Clap"

Hesitantly, the room roared to applause, and the sunken President sulked off stage, defeated in his attempt at exciting the crowd. A sullen look on his face, he quickly made his way towards Café d'Amérique, of which he was a regular customer and sat down slowly.

"Nice to see you, Jeb!" Enrique, the owner of the establishment exclaimed, almost appearing fake to the already hurt President. "How's my favorite President?"

"Well, my approval rating's still going strong," said Bush, mustering as much grace as he could in the moment. That was only half right, of course. His approval was standing at a solid seventy percent, but, with an office as weak as the Presidency, it was hard to not be popular, at least in a sense of the word. Seeing the day's copy of the New York Times, his mood lightened up. It was somewhat of a tradition, which, although admittedly not much, gave the President something to look foward to. Although, seeing the tense look on Enrique's face, maybe it would be best for him to leave it alone for today.

Hesitantly flipping until he can see the bolded header reading "Politics", he could quickly see why. In the center of the page on the front page, he could see the headline clear as day: "Profiles in Madness", a clear allusion to the famous saying "Only a madman could accept the Presidency", itself a reference to Carl Albert's famous adage, following his resignation, "Only a madman would willingly take that damned office after Nixon and Ford." Against his own, common sense, Jeb looked down slowly to the bottom of the article, reading outloud as Enrique watched on with an intrigued look on his face at the final subtitle of the artcle: "The Tragedy of John Ellis Bush".

Am I mad? the now hopeless President thought to himself, detesting now, the office which he had been elected to. Is this what's become of my career?

He could only look up at Enrique and attempt to force a smile as he attempted to shrug off the perceived insult to his mental state, adding "You learn more about yourself everyday," his joke falling flat like his earlier speech. Guess it's all or nothing, the President thought to himself, his eyes guiding his attention to the top of the page.

The first subtitle of many, the beginning of American insanity read simply: Richard Nixon: the President's Bloodstained hands. Resigning himself to the article, the President could only sigh as he began to read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to Profiles in Madness! Although this is perhaps my most ambitious project on the site, it's probably the one I'm most excited to write. To avoid spoilers, I'll refrain from saying too much about it, but, I can give a slight sneak peek by saying that the writer of the article is one Pat Robertson
Top