What's the story being * = Bush?

[zaj]

?

[Massacure]

1. The asterik notes that Bush wasn't officially elected,

That he was just picked by the supreme court.

[wndycty]

3. And that is also how Doonesbury ID's him

:kick:

[phiddle]

2. Also,

it's the closest representation on the keyboard of "asshole".

[City Lights]

4. His name with have an "*" next to it in the history books.

*Selected by the USSC.

[NewHampshireDem]

5. I also use the * because

I can't stand to type that mo-fo's name! :evilgrin:

[MoonRiver]

6. Must never use the name of the 'beast'.

[TiredTexan]

7. It means "he who cannot be named"

You know, like that bad guy in the the Harry Potter books.

[Catch22Dem]

8. From as early as I can remember on DU

Which is almost the beginning. (I lurked for like a year before I finally decided to post.) It was the Trudeau reference that seemed to kick it off. Trudeau always drew Bush Sr. with just an asterisk, then started drawing Junior as an asterisk w/ a cowboy hat.

Trudeau is brilliant!

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. In 1961...

Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's 1927 single-season home run record of 60 by hitting 61 round-trippers, but the season in the meanwhile had grown from 154 to 162 games.

Ruth hit a home run, in other words, every 2.56 games to Maris' 2.65, a more productive per-game clip, even though it added up to a lower total.

Add Ruth's status as a demi-god, and Maris' as a very good, but not great, hitter (Williams, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, all better, and more besides) and it was inevitable that Maris' accomplishment would be be considered somehow bogus, or tainted.

The story goes -- and Snopes says otherwise -- that then-commissioner Ford Frick required that the record books give Maris as the single-season home run champ, but with an asterisk and an explanation.

Bush's half-assed election 'victory' is thus immortalized with the asterisk, a sign that it wasn't like any previous presidential victory.

Garry Trudeau would have been well aware of the Maris-Ruth controversy.

[stellanoir]

10. historically the asterisk has accompanied the names

of the few presidents who were elected by the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. Trudeau just popularized it and associated it (most appropriately) with *. All the other references apply as well. Besides, no one likes to type his name.

[TrustingDog]

11. puckering asshole n/t