brainrow

Ever since my experiments to make contact with parallel universes a few weeks ago, my cable TV has been acting up.

Take last night: I saw a World War II documentary on the History Channel. It started with familiar footage of the carnage at Pearl Harbor, followed by grainy black-and-white film of the President addressing a joint session of Congress. “Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,” he declared, “a date which will live in in-fa-my.” It wasn’t FDR — it was George W. Bush!

In response to the shocking surprise attack by Japanese forces, the President demanded a declaration of war against… Mexico.

This caused quite a stir — a presidential advisor named Richard A. Clarke had privately told Bush it would be “like responding to mad bombers from Saudi Arabia with an invasion of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq” — but the president was resolute. Japan, he pointed out, was way over on the far side of the Pacific Ocean, “one of our largest oceans,” while Mexico sat menacingly close, right on our southern border. “We cannot afford to wait for Montezuma’s revenge, which may come in the form of a smoking gun,” he said.

Partisan politics was set aside. “We have been attacked by a foreign power,” said two-term former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “and we must have confidence that our elected leaders will act in good faith, and will act wisely, in the interest of all Americans.” A reluctant Congress granted Bush the authority to use force against Mexico if he deemed it necessary.

He did.

There was film of U.S. forces rolling triumphantly into Mexico City after an invasion that met only limited resistance, and smashing pictures of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Then there was footage of Mexican insurgents. They were emboldened when they realized that many U.S. soldiers were poorly equipped, some armed with broom handles instead of rifles. “You go to war with the army you have,” said Secretary of War Donald H. Rumsfeld.

U.S. forces held on in Mexico City, but an animated map showed how province after province fell under the control of Mexican insurgents — from Durango to Sinaloa, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. From Veracruz to Puebla, Hidalgo, and Tamaulipas. From Nuevo León and Coahuila and Tamaulipas into southern Texas.

When New Mexico and Arizona fell to the Mexicans, some Democrats in Congress called for a change in Administration war policies. Vice-President Richard B. Cheney said, “You see these pictures of Mexican troops in Austin and Santa Fe and Tucson, and you have to ask why the Roosevelt Administration never took the Mexican threat seriously.”

When the Japanese invasion overran most of California, Oregon and Washington state, Democrats renewed their call for change. “If we change course now, we’re just giving aid and comfort to those who attacked us,” Bush said. “We’re fighting them here so we don’t have to fight them all the way over there.”

On June 6, 1944, in the largest amphibious assault in history, German forces crossed the English Channel and invaded England in an operation remembered as “Der Tag.” England had struggled ever since their U.S. allies had diverted all their resources to the war on Mexico and a series of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. With England’s collapse, the fate of all of Europe was sealed.

The cable guy’s coming out on Tuesday — hey, that’s Election Day. I sure hope he can fix this, because I don’t think I can stand much more of this version of history.