My Evil Twin

"My evil twin, bad weather friend, he always wants to start when I want to begin..." -They Might Be Giants

Republican cheats and thieves are now getting their alibis from the movie Dead Ringers:

Oh, now this is just too weird.

As you know, we've been following the bizarre case of Claude Allen, former top advisor to President Bush who was arrested a few days ago and booked and charges stemming from a lengthy shoplifting spree.

Now, here late this evening I got an email from TPM Reader WH who directed my attention to today's All Things Considered on NPR in which Michele Norris interviews Michael Fletcher, a reporter with the Post who's been covering the story.

Now, right at about 1:40 into the interview comes this exchange ...

Norris: We should note something, Michael. Apparently Claude Allen has a twin brother?

Fletcher: Yes, he does. He has an identical twin brother who even close friends can’t tell them apart when they see them. And people have seen him and close friends say that Mr. Allen has indicated to them that maybe his brother holds the key to this entire puzzling affair.

This New York Times story furthers the argument, getting quotes from Allen's stepmother saying "Floyd (the evil twin) was the twin who kept running into bad times."
And according to Josh, the evil twin meme is apparently contagious!

Yesterday we brought you the news that The Hill, the capitol hill newspaper, had unearthed an old article from the 1984 Republican convention which had some very harsh quotes from Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH). She's the one who narrowly beat Paul Hackett a few months back and then, soon after, called Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) a coward on the House floor.

So, anyway, the old article had Schmidt raging against now-Senator Liddy Dole. But the big thing was that she said young GOP activists " look like young Hitlers to me. … They’re so grim and deadly serious about the cause." [...]

When confronted with the Hitler remark, Schmidt's Chief of Staff Barry Bennett, "that Schmidt made the comment, explaining that her twin sister, Jennifer Black, who was also mentioned in the paragraph, made the remark."

I can see this only continuing to spread. "No, you guys misunderstood, Brick Cheney shot the guy in the face! Dick was at home!" "George W. Bush didn't lose the Iraq war and ignore federal wiretapping laws! George X. Bush did!"

They've really hit on something here. The Republican Party could run in 2006 on the idea that "vote for us and we'll throw out those evil Bepublicans who've taken over the government!" Actually, considering I've heard David Dreier claim that Republicans are "the party of reform" about 100 times (we'll save us from ourselves!), this could actually fly.