Mysteries of Texas 
The Financial Times sheds some light on one of the 2008 Presidential campain’s oddities: how George H.W. Bush came to host Mitt Romney for his Mormon 2.0 speech at the Bush Library. The FT discussed how the many candidates have related to not-for-profits in the past as clues to their prospective administrations.
“Of concern with Mitt Romney and Giuliani is their assessment about the judgment of people they associate with in the non-profit sector. As a board member of the Points of Life Foundation, Romney was involved in the organisation’s merger with the Hands On Network, which chose Neil Bush, the president’s brother, as vice-chair and chair-elect. Bush does not convey an image of the highest standards of non-profit probity thanks to a history of dubious business and non-profit endeavours. These include the Silverado Savings and Loan collapse (costing American taxpayers $1.3bn) and having his mother, Barbara, pitch for charitable donations that would be designated to help school systems buy his learning software.”
Mama Tried 
They are letting Neil off easy. His Asian whore mongering while in the service of dubious businessmen is legend.
Ignite!’s stuff is comically bad.
Reaching today’s teens through the universal language of Rap, a bored singer intones Machines and Profit in World Cultures, Europe in Transition, Topic 4: Industrial Revolution:
“with government out of the way, industrialists ruled the day…and got the pay”
And yes, they are on the YouthTube.
Bush’s business model focuses on getting local schools to buy one of his expensive “Cows” [“Curriculum on Wheels”], which appear to be a tricked up box of notebooks.
With wheels! 
Ill-starred Presidential filmmaker Oliver Stone now threatens a George Bush biopic, with a leading man offering all the “same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush.”
Stone’s “JFK” was an incoherent mash-up of as many conspiracy theories as sleepy Kevin Costner could carry, and “Nixon” was just dull. 
My personal hope is that Stone’s Bush takes a flashback to the Reagan/Bush 80s and 90s, and somehow finally explains what the hell Jim Belushi’s “Doctor Rock” character was doing in Salvador. 
“Stone Says I’ve Got It” 
Bush marks MLK Day.
“My frame of reference is what worksâ€
Thank goodness Barack Obama isn’t invested in the 60s like those tiresome boomers.
But he appears to replace their obsessions with his own free-floating grab bag of Time “Man of the Year” cliches. If he doesn’t care for the 60s perhaps he can catch up on the 80s.
Obama’s Reagan Mania recalls the grimly practical Deng Xiaoping, ”It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
And has Democratic Hall Monitor Paul Krugman points out, the Reagan Era wasn’t such a buoyant time, boyish charm aside.
“… the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan…Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.”
Truth & Consequences 
Ronald Reagan’s miracle working powers are a staple of Republican writing and rhetoric .
Now comes a theory that the infectious optimism from beyond can smote Democrats, even from the grave. OpenLeft’s Matt Stoller suggests that “swing liberals” heard Barack Obama’s comments on the sunlit days of the Reagan Era, and that was enough to flip them to Hillary Clinton.
“We have been fighting Ronald Reagan’s psychologically diseased followers and predecessors since, well, since they called themselves the Confederacy and fought for slavery. And we will keep fighting them if we are to retain a republic. That’s why the self-identified very liberal Democrats swung away from Obama and took Nevada from him. Because he very self-consciously explained that he is not part of that fight, and they want a leader who is.”
Days of Yore 
City of Dreams 
Time to vote at the Wynn Las Vegas, and casino worker/reluctant Hillary Clinton supporter Don Harris told the Washington Post what his problem with her was:
“I just don’t know how many hours she spends in the Wal-Mart boardroom.”
Good Times There Are Not Forgotten 
Clinton has been endlessly analogized to Nixon. Smart but charmless, not a natural politician but works hard. The problem is that while Nixon voters could at least comfort themselves that he would smite their enemies, potential Clinton supporters have no such assurances. At least Nixon was against the damn hippies. Hillary Clinton wants to “dialogue” with the worst her nominal opponents cough up.
Witness the debate on health.
There’s been some competition among Democratic candidates for who can better curse corporations while devising a health plan for the campaign. John Edwards has gotten some mileage mocking Barack Obama’s vision of a “big table” with Obama as Lyndon Johnson saying “Come let us reason together.”
On this one Obama is in full Git R’ Done,DC Edition mode:
“The key to getting this done is to empower the American people, but you also have to have negotiations and you have to be able to listen. Otherwise, stuff is not going to happen….The notion that they will have no say so at all, is just not realistic.
Hall Monitor Paul Krugman says Hillary Clinton’s health plan 
is an Edwards me-to, but doesn’t let her off probation.
And rightly so. Early January saw the Clinton Library as venue for the who-could-be-against-itly named Better Health Care Together, sponsored by old Hillary pals Wal-Mart. For some reason the event is not mentioned on the Clinton Foundation website.
