I was curious about the origin of the term “ombudsman”, so I decided to do some research. Now, you won’t find this information just anywhere, as it’s been covered up by the FBI in the interest of national self-esteem security, but apparently the first appearance of an ombudsman was the superhero Ombudsman, an alien humanoid sent to Earth from a dying world, where they knew everything about everything, and so his super power was to correct everybody’s erroneous statements all the time. (I believe he wore a superhero costume with a big “O” on his chest, with a big brain inside it, and a set of encyclopedia spines painted on his cape.) Not only would he know who said what that was wrong, but he also knew where they were, and he flew around the country (yeah, he could fly too, apparently), correcting the incorrect, and making the world safe (well, America, anyway: he didn’t like helping commies) for valid arguments and correct references!
Oh, but the power elite in America did not like being shown up in this way, so Ombudsman quickly lost favor amongst the embarrassed powerful in America. And unfortunately for Ombudsman, he showed the wrong people up at the wrong time once too often (you’d think a guy who knows everything would know not to do that. I can only think it was his arrogance that got the better of him. Being a know-it-all is a quite irresistible power to abuse, I guess…), and alas, he was not bulletproof. And so it happened, supposedly, that he showed up and corrected too many powerful people too many times. And you know how much powerful people love being corrected… So, supposedly, after correcting a particularly powerful personage one time too many, the person retorted: “Strike three…” And while Ombudsman was saying that reference only made sense in a baseball game, the person had him shot. But the government covered the whole thing up; not to cover up anyone’s actions, but just because they generally didn’t like being shown up for being factually inaccurate. (I can only imagine how busy he must have been during political campaigns, and how hated.)
