I have just been to see Lincoln, an excellent film about a truly great politician. One thing spoiled it for me, my mind kept slipping between that famous image of Abe and the strutting figure of Charley Taze.
That set me thinking, granted the facial hair was probably fairly common in that style in the second half of the 19thC. Charley was 13 when Abe was assassinated, he could almost have modeled himself on Lincoln. The facial hair, the religio-political rhetoric, the delusions of grandeur on the part of old C.T.R., are all factors
Is that what started it all off? Are we all in some grandiose world domination nightmare spawned by an unhealthy obsession of a young man with Abe Lincoln?