Like many fellow Americans, Mr Damian is today trying to get a day off work in order to mourn the death of the former US President Ronald Reagan.

However, unlike many fellow Americans, Mr Damian knows that Ronald Reagan actually died in 1982 and that since then he has been replaced by a series of look-alike actors – a fact that had been kept from the American public for fear of undermining their national psyche and giving the Ruskies the upper hand in the propaganda war.

It’s a practice employed by political leaders the world over – Margaret Thatcher, Brezhnev, Willy Brandt, Willy Brandt and Fidel Castro all died many years before an official announcement whilst Bill Clinton retired several years before he officially left the White House in order to spend more time working on his short game. He now lives in the US Virgin Islands with Monica Lewinksy, whilst his army of look-alikes continue to offer media soundbites and keep fast food outlets in business.

Most of the time this practise works well, maintaining the political status quo, avoiding panic in the financial markets and keeping the acting unions onside.

The only recent example where this hasn’t worked well was with the AI machine used to impersonate former Vice-President Al Gore. “We got that one wrong” one scientist told us “we tried to introduce a machine when only an actor will do”.

Indeed.

Posted by damian at June 07, 2004 11:35 AM | TrackBack