Future Ford Afloat! 
Who’d a thunk we’d turn to ESPN’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” to point out oddities at sea, but Gregg Easterbrook is on to something peculiar in the Navy’s naming schemes.
The troubled USS Gerald Ford, paired with Reagan and Bush Sr. ships, sent him over the edge.
“TMQ finds repugnant this blatant Pentagon favoritism for Republicans. Gerald Ford was never elected to national office: he was appointed to the vice presidency, then became president by succession when Richard Nixon resigned. The never-elected, half-term Ford will have a supercarrier named for him while Clinton, a two-term president twice chosen by U.S. voters, does not.”
Bush Is Gear 
A groundswell [or tsunami?] for Gerry is difficult to detect. The wingers at Newsmax ran petitions to name the ship for Ford, even touting USS Ford caps. Their site is Ford-free of merchandise now, if it ever carried it.
And lest we forget, the USS John F.Kennedy was retired last year.
Strenuous Denials! 
The Theodore Roosevelt Association accused past director Edward Renehan of stealing Association documents and he’s criminally charged.
Renehan’s publicist responds saying he is bipolar, and claiming that in past internal thefts the Association has quietly done deals, letting a office manager who allegedly embezzled $100,000 walk with a promise of future restitution.
Thick With Thieves? 
Enraging the TRA president, who told Newsday “…Mr. Renehan misappropriated Theodore Roosevelt Association property and now has inappropriately disclosed confidential information.”
Leading Renehan’s attorney to tell Newsday the leak was “unauthorized by myself or by Ed Renehan.”
Which is true – Renehan’s publicist did it. And none to fastidiously. Newsday says some 20 people received an email detailing the allegations, and your humble correspondent was among those blessed. But Renehan has removed the reference to the publicist from his web site, so everyone should be happy now! He’s also demoted his Roosevelt book “The Lion’s Pride” to a mention of it’s audio-book, although it is still in print.
Getting Right With Jesus 
“The omnipresence of “God bless America” as a political slogan is an entirely recent phenomenon. We know because we’ve run the numbers. Analysis of more than 15,000 public communications by political leaders from Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932 — the beginning of the modern presidency — through six years of George W. Bush’s administration revealed that prior to Ronald Reagan taking office in 1981, the phrase had passed a modern president’s lips only once in a major address: Richard Nixon used it to conclude an April 30, 1973, speech about Watergate.”
“The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America“
Dick’s Last Trick?
The Nixon Blog continues it’s perversely Nixon-centric view of the universe, offering up Obama early adopter and Weatherman William Ayers‘s lack of jail time as the price the nation paid for poor Dick Nixon’s crucifiction.
Defender onto death and former Nixon Library head John Taylor explains how the crimes against Nixon echo down the ages.
“If everyone knows that William Ayers and his comrades in the Weather Underground were planning to set bombs to murder innocent people, why didn’t they do time?
Because the investigation against them was muffed thanks to the illegal activities of the Washington Post’s favorite Watergate answerman himself, Mark Felt — aka Deep Throat. ..Now we know the truth. If it hadn’t been for Mark Felt, President Nixon might have finished his second term, and William Ayers might have gone to jail.”
Great to see Taylor getting all huffy about illegal break-ins!
Loot & Lore of the Sea 
Legal, but not the touching catch and release tale we’ve been told?
Questions are being raised about the Senior President Bush’s Tarpon adventure off Florida. Byron Stout’s Tarpongate probing makes clear that, tagged legal catch or not, the fish in question may have suffered fatal injuries in the course of the fish/Bush photo-op.
“The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission made it clear, in guidelines distributed last spring, that there is no legal rationale for boating an untagged tarpon because there are no size restrictions that compel its measurement. The commission’s position is that large fish have skeletal structures not designed to support them out of water, and pulling such fish into a boat or onto land violates the legal requirement of releasing them “unharmed.” Studies of the effects of catch-and-release fishing have shown that fish hauled out of water can suffer lethal injuries, including suffocation, damage to internal organs and structures, and removal of slime that protects them from bacterial infections.”
Enjoy your trophy, Mr. President!
