Lee Harvey Oswald Begat Donald Rumsfeld

It was so much fun contemplating my first Weird Connections article that I've decided to add a second.

If Lee Harvey Oswald had never been born, then he would not have assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

If President Kennedy had not been assassinated, Lyndon Baines Johnson would not have become president, leaving the office of Vice President vacant until Hubert H. Humprey took the oath of office as Vice President following the 1964 presidential election.

Without a vacancy at Vice President, Congress would not have bothered voting in the 25th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides the method to fill a Vice Presidential vacancy mid-term.

Without a 25th amendment, Representative Gerald Ford would not have become Vice President following the resignation of Spiro Agnew.

With a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, Nixon's subsequent resignation would have resulted in then Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-OK) becoming President of the United States.

Without Gerald Ford as President, he would have been unable to appoint washed up Congressman Donald Rumsfeld as (first) his transition leader, and (subsequently) his Chief of Staff.

Without receiving those plum appointments, Rumsfeld's subsequent government career would have been highly unlikely, if not impossible.

Chevrolet Corvair begat Bush 43

I've decided that the real and true reason that Bush is president (rather than Al Gore) is because General Motors copied the Volkswagen Beetle's rear swing-arm suspension on one of the car models it developed in the 1950s. I can spell it out for you:

In late 1959, Chevrolet began selling the Corvair as a 1960 model.

On January 13, 1962, famous comedian Ernie Kovacs was instantly killed when his Corvair wagon spun out of control on a wet roadway and crashed into a power pole.

Using, among other things, film supplied by Ford Motor Company (a competitor of General Motors) Ralph Nader came to national prominence with the publication of "Unsafe at Any Speed," an expose on the American automobile industry. Although the Corvair was prominently profiled in the book, it was only one of several vehicles examined.

Without the fame associated with the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, it is highly unlikely that Nader would have mounted a third-party presidential bid in 2000, which arguably would have resulted in Gore taking Florida, and the election.

Incidentally, in 1972 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration exonerated the Corvair's design, declaring that it was no less safe than other automobiles designed in it's era.