Weird. While exploring the New York Times archives, I found this 1993 piece by historian Michael Beschloss that attempts to predict the future from the fictional perspective of 2008. It was published three days before George H.W. Bush left the White House and attempts to examine his legacy. In the process, it shows us a creepy parallel universe that echoes across a dimensional rift…

Some excerpts:

[George Bush’s] defeat by Bill Clinton in 1992 ushered in a 16-year cycle of progressive activism. During an era dominated by two energetic Presidents — Bill Clinton and his successor, Al Gore — the stature of a right-of-center chief executive like George Bush, who recoiled from using the full powers of the Presidency, was bound to suffer.

After his term ended, Republican leaders instantly disowned him as an unwanted reminder of their flirtation with ideological moderation. At their 1996 convention in Salt Lake City, when Representative Robert Dornan of California was nominated for President, Mr. Bush was not invited onto the podium. Dornan and his running mate, Representative Newt Gingrich, rushed to the retirement homes of former Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan for endorsements but eschewed all invitations to be photographed with Mr. Bush.

After Noriega’s release from prison in 1998 and Saddam’s ouster by military coup in 1999, the two men held a joint news conference in Asuncion, Paraguay, during which they played tapes of private conversations with Mr. Bush. According to the tapes, then-Vice President Bush told General Noriega in 1985: “We love your commitment to democracy. Keep it up!” During a 1990 telephone call to Mr. Hussein, then-President Bush praised Iraq as “an island of stability in a troubled region.”

In 2002, for the first time in a half-century, Republicans seized control of both houses of Congress and quickly voted to strip the funds from numerous White House-sponsored programs, such as Clinton’s National Service Corps and Gore’s Global Warming Initiative (G.W.I.). This legislative drive drew the support of perennial Presidential candidate Ross Perot and nearly all of the other 38 billionaires who declared their candidacies for the White House in 2004.

President Gore appointed [Bush] to undertake special diplomatic missions to post-Communist Cuba, the semi-autonomous republic of Northern Moscow and to Monaco, where peace talks with France inspired by Mr. Bush were entering their 16th year.

When his Hispanic-American grandson, George P. Bush, was elected to the United States Senate from Florida in 2006 on an anti-secessionist ticket, Mr. Bush was guest of honor at the South Miami victory rally.

What a [parallel] world.