Doppelganger?

"I was constantly watching myself, my secret self.... It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it." - Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer

I don't know whether this is a brand new rabbit hole, a hidden entrance to an old one, or just some stupid hole in the ground. But we should at least poke a few, strong sticks down it to see how far it goes.

On May 27, Radar Online posted court documents it had obtained showing a "George W Bush Jr" had been convicted in a Midland, Texas court of "unlawful practice of medicine," for which he was fined $2,000 and sentenced to one year's probabtion. (What precisely the practice entailed is not specified.) The charge stems from 1986, the middle of George HW Bush's second unofficial presidential term, the height of Iran/Contra, and the year during which George W Bush claims he stopped drinking. Bush is listed as 5'9" tall, 161 lbs, brown hair and blue eyes, born "12-7-45." This could describe President Bush, though according to his White House biography he was born July 6, 1946.

The lawyer for "George W Bush Jr" was Warren Burnett, legendary Texas attorney, who was also alleged to have represented the other Bush in his expunged conviction for cocaine possession. (Burnett, who would neither confirm or deny the cocaine story, died in 2002 at age 75 "with a cold beer in his hand.")



Radar Online implies that James Hatfield simply got his George W Bushes mixed up when he was researching Fortunate Son, and conflated the two, but that doesn't make sense of the evidence. And a second George W Bush is just the half of it, at best.

On June 4, 1999, with the presidential candidacy of at least one of these Midland George W Bushes in its infancy, Online Journal published a curious investigative story by Linda Starr and Bev Conover entitled "What Is George Dubya hiding?"

What prompted their question was the discovery that on March 31, 1995, the newly-elected Governor Bush had been issued a driver's license with the entirely new number of 000000005, which destroyed the records of his previous license. Laura's license was renewed the same day, but she retained her old number, which is common practice. Bush's parents have kept theirs, as have every other former governor of Texas. Starr and Conover ask whether the Governor had "something in his past to hide to cause him to purge the old record and number. This seems especially confusing since his birthday is July 6, 1946, but he obtained his new number on March 31, 1995 as a renewal."

Further, they write:

During our search for the truth about Dubya's past, we came across something very interesting indeed! Another George W. Bush, white male, blue eyes, brown hair, but born on Oct. 17, 1964! What called our attention to this person, since there are so many Bushes living in Texas, is that this person's record was deleted on Dec. 24, 1998.

Starr and Conover called the Houston number listed for the address shown on the deleted Bush's license. A woman who refused to identify herself said she had never heard of him. And a spokesperson for Bush's Presidential Exploratory Committee said she "doubted" that something had been expunged from the Governor's record, but she couldn't explain the issuance of a new license.

So what's all this about? And just how many George W Bush's are there?

We should note that the signatures of the 1986 "George W Bush Jr" and President Bush are not a match -



so it's unlikely that the person who signed the court document now occupies the White House. As unlikely as it seems, that would appear to leave pure coincidence as the most likely explanation. Except this is the Bush family we're talking about, so we should excercise caution when talking about both appearances and coincidences.

And what about the other, other George W Bush, also of brown hair and blue eyes, said to have been born on October 17, 1964, who became an unperson on December 24, 1998? Was this the whispered love child - or more accurately, graduation party child - fathered out of high school by the soon-to-be Bonesman, born to the daughter of a local evangelist? It's unlikely that a disowned son would bear his name. Coincidence? Again, probably, if it wasn't a Bush. Yet again, it is. And why was his record deleted just as the George W Bush tooled up for a presidential run?

Could legal fictions named "George W Bush" - close but no cigar to the original - have been created and entered into the system to take his rap, even post facto, vacuum up his messes, and then be made to disappear?

Incredibly, maybe. But then, how real is the original?


By the way, here's a follow up to the reopening of the Atlanta serial murder investigation (and thanks to "airdrawndagger" for the link): "Georgia Officials Fighting Effort to Release Klan File in Atlanta Child Murders Case".

And after a week of talk of Sirius, dog days, ritually slain canines and former Processeans running the "world's favorite animal shelter," what are we to think of the PETA employees, charged with cruelty to animals, who made a practice of dumping carcasses behind a shopping mall? (Thanks again to readers for the story.)