In May 2009, Rexall is rendered comatose when the White House is bombed by Saudi Arabian terrorists in retaliation for an accidental misfire of an orbiting laser cannon that was intended to strike Libya, but strikes the Saudi oilfields instead. Nearly every successor in the hierarchy to the presidency is killed in the attack, leaving only the liberal Secretary of Agriculture, Howard Nissen, alive to take the post of president. Nissen proves to be an effective leader, ending years of scattered global wars being fought by Rexall's PAX Peace Force and sending troops to South America to fight the destruction of the rainforests by renegade cattle industrialists.