The 1993 film Dave was a hilarious comedy about a loathsome President, Bill Mitchell, who has a stroke while sleeping with a woman not his wife, but one of the women who works in the Oval Office.  His staffers have only just discovered a likely body double, Dave Kovic, to be deployed at certain public occasions.  Both parts were played by Kevin Kline.  It remains a wonderful, classic film, the premise outrageous but entertaining and perhaps prescient.  

Just after the Dave of the film has been recruited, the President's stroke occurs and Dave is pressed into a broader role than first presented to him.  Now he must be the President until the real one recovers.  Dave, though, is a regular guy, a really good man, without a shred of arrogance or pretension.  He is a talented comic; his part time job has been impersonating the President at parties and for commercials.  His real job is a temp agency; he finds work for people.  He takes his "role" seriously.

The film was an obvious swipe at Bill Clinton, whose reputation as a womanizer followed him to the White House.  Even though the film was made years before Monica Lewinsky worked as an intern at the White House, Clinton's reputation for cheating was well known.  He was an Arkansas legend.  In the film, Bill Mitchell's wife hates him, for obvious reasons.

It turns out that body doubles for Presidents, Popes, etc. is not just the stuff of comedic fiction.  Hillary has had the same body double for twenty-three years! Impersonator Teresa Barnwell. Apparently many famous important people have body doubles.  Who knew?

This is not to say that Teresa Barnwell was in New York this past 9/11.  But there are plenty of conspiracy theorists that suggest exactly that.   They claim the woman who walked out of Chelsea's Manhattan apartment (or secret hospital room - another conspiracy theory) was not Hillary!  That she looked younger, thinner, that her hands are different, ear lobes, etc.  Even with their side-by- side pictures, all this is difficult to see for the non-conspiratorialist.  More likely is that whatever ailed Hillary so seriously that morning, she was pumped full of whatever drug helped her rally for her public.  This was all before they knew there was a citizen video of her "medical event."  Now they had to come up with a story.  Their initial explanations, "heat exhaustion"  and "dehydration" were not going to fly.  Everyone saw that video:  she was momentarily catatonic.  She had thoroughly collapsed.  Pneumonia was the eventual explanation.  True?  Who knows?  These people do not tell the truth if they can avoid it.

Renewed demands for Hillary's medical records followed.  Two pages were given to the press:  she is in perfect health though takes several drugs for  allergies and hypothyroidism; and Coumadin, a blood thinner.  There is a great deal left out.  The information released says nothing about her blood clots, falls, or previous fainting episodes, her deep vein thrombosis, etc.  So naturally there are all manner of "experts" weighing in on what is wrong with her:  Parkinson's, MS, even epilepsy.  The blue lenses of her sunglasses are anti-seizure lenses made by Zeiss, so many hypothesize.  Then there is that mysterious man who is always at her side.  Is he the neurologist Oladotun A. Okunola?  His name is not on the records released today.  Perhaps the two pages of medical records released are those of Teresa Barnwell!  That is what happens in the film Dave.  The body double is much healthier than the real guy.

Oh how the Democrats must be wishing for a likeable body double they could pass off as Hillary.  Someone like the Dave of the film; a good and gregarious, entertaining, natural woman (or man).  Hillary is a disaster as a candidate, patronizing and grossly condescending.  She clearly loathes the people she must beg for votes.   She likes fundraisers with wealthy celebrities who throw money at her.  She hates speaking events before regular people, which is why she does so few of them.  And when she does, not very many people attend. 

Politics in America has been a nasty business since Revolutionary times.  It just seems more vicious now thanks to the media, the internet and social sites where people can spew the most vile accusations and calumnies.  But it has always been a rough game, which is why the best person does not always win. 

It is up to the voters to judge the character of the candidates.  Hillary's character is a known quantity; she is what Colin Powell said she is:  a woman of "unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still  dicking bimbos at home."  "She screws up everything with hubris."  She always considers what is best for her first, not the country.   Trump's character is lesser known but a safer bet, if only because he will be so, so different.  He will still have a Congress with which to contend. His presidency may well be like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  But at least we know he loves the country. And no one will ever find a body double for Trump.