The Butterfly Effect is a concept that comes out of Chaos Theory. The term is attributed to a meteorologist, Edward Lorenz, who was studying the major impacts/changes of weather based upon very tiny perturbations in the initial conditions. The term Butterfly Effect comes from a paper he wrote in the early 1970's titled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"
Since Dubya's re-election I have been thinking about the Butterfly effect and Linda Tripp. In my view she is one of the butterflies in a very convoluted and tenuously weak chain that has resulted in the world we live in today.
Looking backward, Bush was re-elected,from the exit polling information, based upon people voting on "moral issues". Despite the fact that he has been a complete disaster as a CEO, Commander in Chief, and Leader of the Free World, we put him back in office because, to many people, right or wrong, he represents a more moral choice than what the Democrats offered... Flip flop Johnny I voted for it before I vote against it Kerry. Why is that?
Well, we know why that is. Everybody's favorite Democrat, Bill Clinton, was caught with his pants down in the Whitehouse having "sexual relations with THAT WOMAN", Monica Lewinsky. Why do we know that? Because Monica told her good friend Linda Tripp about her affair, Linda Tripp told the RNC, and the rest is history.
So the question goes, what if there was no Linda Tripp? Or what if Linda Tripp was not a Republican spy, but a true friend to Monica. The odds are that we would never have known about Monica Lewinsky, Clinton would never have faced Articles of Impeachment, and Gore would have won in a Landslide in 2000.
There are other "butterflies" in the chain leading to Bush's re-election (e.g. the person who invented the aptly-named Butterfly Ballot in Florida), but Linda Tripp is the most obvious one.