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George Bush as Texas Governor had his staff kill emails after 7 days, we now know from a fight with current Texas Governor Rick Perry over access to Perry staff records. Perry’s press secretary fingered Bush in claiming the policy had not originated with Perry’s Administration.

Perry’s spokesman Robert Black explained to the Star-Telegram:

“We kept Bush’s policy. This started under him as far as we know …I wouldn’t see why there needs to be a change.”

All Governor’s office email is currently being saved in response to a man who has written a computer program to request the records twice a week.

The Washington Post today has an editorial today [“Records Under Wraps – Hillary Clinton’s White House papers would be tied up even if she released them“] which is a rarity in coverage and commentary on the story. It addresses the real issue and the real need: Bush finagling on access to Presidential papers and lack of staff to process what documents make it through the mill.

“….even if Mr. Clinton today asked the National Archives to release confidential communications between him and the former first lady, disclosure could still be years away. That’s because the six archivists at the Clinton library would have to sift through — by hand — more than 138 million pages in 36,000 boxes. And that’s after they respond on a first-come-first-served basis to 287 pending Freedom of Information Act requests”

Meanwhile, an Administration with a proven record of concealment and slipshod handling of it’s papers is now under federal court order not to destroy backup tapes for emails, millions of which may be missing.

Old Times

After several rounds in the New York Times pages and blog mentions beyond count, an historian who has actually studied Mississippi, Civil Rights and the rise of Ronald Reagan weighs in:

“Throughout his career, Reagan benefited from subtly divisive appeals to whites who resented efforts in the 1960s and 70s to reverse historic patterns of racial discrimination. He did it in 1966 when he campaigned for the California governorship by denouncing open housing and civil rights laws. He did it in 1976 when he tried to beat out Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination by attacking welfare in subtly racist terms. And he did it in Neshoba County in 1980.

Reagan knew that southern Republicans were making racial appeals to win over conservative southern Democrats, and he was a willing participant. Despite what Brooks claims, it’s no slur to hold Reagan accountable for the choice that he made. Neither is it mere partisanship to try to think seriously about the complex ways that white racism has shaped modern conservative politics.

Throughout his career, Reagan benefited from subtly divisive appeals to whites who resented efforts in the 1960s and 70s to reverse historic patterns of racial discrimination. He did it in 1966 when he campaigned for the California governorship by denouncing open housing and civil rights laws. He did it in 1976 when he tried to beat out Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination by attacking welfare in subtly racist terms. And he did it in Neshoba County in 1980.

Reagan knew that southern Republicans were making racial appeals to win over conservative southern Democrats, and he was a willing participant. Despite what Brooks claims, it’s no slur to hold Reagan accountable for the choice that he made. Neither is it mere partisanship to try to think seriously about the complex ways that white racism has shaped modern conservative politics.”

Joseph Crespino

Laugh, and the World Loses Grasp of the Facts

Although the opening was briefly marred by the Reagan Museum’s lost collections story, and by people actually recalling the era, Nancy Reagan’s dress show has returned her in triumph to the fashion pages.

“Her glamour sometimes spurred more ire than awe. Reagan was widely criticized for her extravagance during the economic downturn, and she took her biggest drubbing for commissioning $200,000 worth of china for the White House in 1981. A year later, however, she shocked journalists and her husband alike when she paraded onstage during a Gridiron Dinner wearing a schizophrenic get-up that included a feather boa and yellow galoshes. The first lady belted out “Second Hand Clothes” to the tune of “Second Hand Rose.”

“The reporters saw that she could laugh at herself and it became a turning point for her and the press,” co-curator Jenkins says.”

Everyone loves America’s Widow!

In order to pull this off the actual history of her fashion habit has to be ignored.

In brief: she took clothing, only occasionally paid for it, lied about it, and kept sloppy records throughout Reagan’s two terms. Some details here.

The exhibit’s second hand clothes tribute to her masterful evasion of facts:

Tea, Cosy

It was a friendship for the ages, now commemorated with a house museum.

The Tokyo cottage where Ronald Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasoe held their storied 1983 summit will now open to the public. At it’s height the Japanese were enraptured with the “Ron-Yasu” relationship, and Reagan wrote in his diaries that Nakasone was the best Japanese leader.

By 1992 the glorious friendship had faded, at least in Reagan’s eyes. Japan came up when he was being deposed by the Iran-Contra special Prosecutor:

When asked a question about a late July 1985 diary entry about P.M. Nakasone sending emissary, very hush hush, Reagan needed to be reminded that Yasuhiro Nakasone was then prime minister of Japan.

I don’t know what that would have been about, Reagan said.

All right, sir, Walsh said.

I’m very embarrassed, responded Reagan. I’m sorry. … It’s like I wasn’t president at all.

If Americans remember Nakasone today at all it may be for his racist remarks on the intelligence of American minorities.
I Am Not A Pimp

Nakasone was in the news earlier this year, denying that he had set up a brothel for the Japanese Navy during World War II. The Japanese government has tried to euphemize the sex slaves in such facilities as “comfort women.”

The Japan Times reported:

“Nakasone’s denial is about a passage he wrote in a contribution to “Owarinaki Kaigun” (“The Navy Without End”), a collection of writings by navy war veterans.

“Some (soldiers) began assaulting (indigenous) women and others started to indulge in gambling. I took great pains to set up a comfort station for them,” he wrote.”