Reagan Inflation

The echos of Tim [who?] Pawlenty’s heartfelt tribute to Ulysses S. Grant had barely faded when eager young Republican cubs sprang forth to re-seal Grant’s Tomb.

Small but perfectly formed North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry  has introduced  legislation to banish Grant from his perch on the $50 bill, replacing him with a fellow all the kids love, Ronald Reagan.

The circle jerk of history is proven in McHenry’s press release.  Why must Grant go? He’s much less popular than Reagan, Historians Say.

Plausible, but which historians? Here we fall down an especially twisted conservative rat hole.

McHenry cites a 2005 survey of historians done for the honest brokers of the Wall Street Journal opinion operation, performed by the  law prof author of “Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 7th edition” on behalf of the focus of evil in the modern judiciary, the Federalist Society.    The Journal guy involved devotes much of his accompanying article to reassuring the faithful that while George W. Bush rated only average, his big bets might still pay off!

Given the sponsors you won’t be surprised to learn that the undisclosed historians panel was corrected for the “far left tilt” of the academy, stacking equal numbers of liberal and conservative historians.

Who knows. We don’t get to see the list, but the stage dressing screams that the fix is in.

Bush Alumni Gather                  

George W. Bush has shown his sensitive side to gathering of the faithful, while interested observers puzzled over an exciting new Bush mystery:

Where did they hide the papers this time?

The former President repeated claims he’ll stay above the political fray, while saying former President Carter had  “made my life miserable.”

The Bush administration alumni gathered in Washington just as yet another old rock turned over.  One piece of information gained from the  Justice Department investigation of John Yoo’s torture memos was the exciting news that many of Yoo’s emails from the period were unavailable.

Apparently because they were deleted.

My Successor Deserves My Documents

Washington veterans exchanged quiet smiles, minds drifting back to the Bush administration’s sprint to the exits, little heeding such niceties as complying with federal record keeping laws. Years of litigation later we learned that some 22 millions emails had gone missing, recoverable only at vast expense.

Choire Sicha spoke for the Nation, asking plaintively “How Many Years Will It Take Us To Get John Yoo’s Emails?”

Watch This Space!



Beck Banishes   

Awakened from their slumbers by patriot/seer Glen Beck, conservatives across America rush to join the antic showman in tossing Teddy Roosevelt over the side.

Until now, who knew that TR’s hysterically masculine crackpot vision of a white man’s world had some problems?  Evidently not Jonah Goldberg.

Wonkette peers under the hood of Teddy’s utopia:

“One day soon, Jonah’s going to hear about this “Nationalized Parks” thing, and he is NOT going to be happy about it.“

 

Bringing Back Barack     

 

Driven from the streets of Jakarta, the boy-statue of Barack Obama has found a home at Obama’s childhood school, or as Fox viewers know, his madrassa.

The Awesome Power Of Social Media® mobilized Indonesian citizen or some kind of outrage at public space being used to honor Obama, with motivations ranging from disapproval of  him to disapproval of his wars.  Despite the latter, American Obama haters joined the fun, although their racist infested site no longer appears on Facebook.

Obama may see the statue on a March visit to Indonesia.

Grant Me This 

It was a gathering of the conservative faithful at CPAC this past weekend, and the search for novel political analogies reached strange new heights.

Among the oddities was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose doomed Presidential campaign took its first tentative steps off the cliff by reminding the assembled Neo-Confederates    of a past glorius Republican office holder,  U.S. Grant.

Somehow today’s conservative struggle resembles Grant’s grinding Civil War victories over the South, his scandel infested administration, or his occasional lunges towards protecting blacks and Republicans from the Klan in the South. Which is unclear, but Pawlenty has his own upbeat, crackpot version:

“We’re on the side of limited government. And, like Grant, we fight.“

But perhaps not win.  Pawlenty came in fourth in CPAC’s presidential straw poll.

Also up for CPAC recycling,  Margeret Thatcher, AKA The Iron Lady.  Indiana Representative Mike Pence, straw poll fifth place holder, put America’s striking coal miners and Trotskyist local office holders on notice by evoking everyone’s favorite Churchill in drag. Just wait till that North Sea oil saves our ass!

A Romantic View Of History

Pence also entertained the crowd with a musty Ronald Reagan yarn, one where Reagan encountered a magic pipe-fitter.  This proto Joe The Plumber begged Reagan to save tax cuts for the rich, so guys like him could be hired by them.  Pence has trotted out the tale of this wondrous encounter at least twice going back to 2005.

CPAC turned to Glen Beck for insane historical tales with a grain of truth.

Peeing all over John McCain’s myth of a muscular progressive Republican past, Beck rightly called Teddy Roosevelt an interventionist.

But calling Roosevelt a socialist is as insane as labeling Obama one.