As the years have passed, the perception of George W. Bush among his critics has shifted from war-hungry megalomaniac to doltish patsy, which makes Lucas' casting of future evil emperor Senator Palpatine as a thinly veiled fictionalization of the U.S. President ridiculous at best. Even at the time it seemed to be a poor fit for a universe built around adventure and grand spiritual struggles: it immediately dated the films, and alienated them even further from people who just wanted to go on a swashbuckling adventure to the stars. On top of all that, Lucas tried to have it both ways with his pet stories; he wanted to have the clearly evil Separatist forces being clearly evil, but at the same time have them separating from a government that was clearly turning very evil. You can see why it didn't exactly succeed.