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Pathway

On this special day in the Ronald Reagan universe, we pause to salute one of the lesser of the vast number of entities with Reagan’s name attached.

Hail Illinois US 14!

Holiday Heart-warmer

Here’s a touching remnant from years gone by for Ronald Reagan’s birthday – Reagan signing the bill creating the Martin Luther King holiday. It could be yours through the market moving magic of EBay.

Historical interpretations of these men grows steadily more fanciful and eccentric as we travel further from the actual events. The Chicago Tribune ran the same photo in it’s Swamp blog, with this caption –

“Given the New Hampshire comments by Sen. Hillary Clinton about it taking a president to make dreams a legislative reality, for which she was excoriated by some of Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, and Obama’s Nevada comments about Reagan being a transformational president, for which he was castigated by Sen. Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and others, this seemed like an appropriate photo to run today”

Transformational, or merely pen-equipped in this instance?

The right wing American Thinker blog has run a highly strange item featuring King and Reagan as Best Buddies of Destiny [with the Pope!]:

“Placing morality above popularity and above “efficiency” has another marvelous trait: It also places you on the moral high ground. Reagan, in this respect, resembles another man whose birthday we just celebrated: Dr. Martin Luther King… It is not coincidence that men like Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, and Pope John Paul II were men who’s great power came from a deliberate decision to ignore opinion and to ignore power and to stand instead on the hill of righteousness. “

Well. What did Reagan actually do or say about MLK? Historian Robert C. Smith has been unable to get the Reagan Library to cough up it’s papers on his decision making over the holiday. And what we know from the public record isn’t terribly flattering, with Reagan showing solidarity with the most retrograde forces in the Republican Party.

“During the Senate debate, Helms called for the opening of the FBI files on King, which he claimed would show that King was a communist or at least a communist sympathizer. When asked in an October 1983 news conference about Helms’ allegations, Reagan responded, “We will know in about 35 years, won’t we?” (referring to the time for the opening of the FBI files).”

And worse in Time:

“..the White House confirmed an exchange of letters between Reagan and former Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson of New Hampshire. Thomson said a holiday for King would honor a man “of immoral character whose frequent associations with leading agents of Communism is well established.” Reagan wrote back that “I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on image, not reality.”

The Sticky End

Temecula California moves at it’s own peculiar rhythms.

The town fathers will mark Ronald Reagan’s birthday today as shall we all, distributing jelly beans to the hungry children.

But there’s more.They have tied the day to the ongoing fundraising for a suitable monument to Reagan, stretching and time-shifting his slim local connection into an enduring love affair.

The Time-line

1968: Reagan bought land in Tenaja, about 13 miles up the road from Temecula.

1979: Reagan sold the land for subdividing into “ranchettes.”

late 70s: Temecula builds a town “sportpark.”

1983: Reagan salutes spunky Temecula’s can do sportparking in a speech to the US Olympic Committee.

2004: Reagan dies.

2005: Retrospectively grateful to have once been noticed [if not visited] by a President, Temecula names the “sportpark” for Reagan.

2005-Present: Fundraising to build this handsome number

Great Guys

ABC News provides the latest and greatest on the great and would be great, and how reincarnations of Your Name Here are thick on the campaign trail.

The Deciders?

The fine detail of the Methodist on Methodist Bush Library dispute at SMU is laid out in all its splendor in a United Methodist News Service story.

To recap, the Methodist Bishops nominally supervising Southern Methodist University have signed off on a deal, but church opponents are appealing to a July regional meeting, seeking to overturn it. And both sides appeal to the Book of Discipline, which sounds way kinkier than Roberts Rules.

Forward to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference!