Bye: The Hype 
The apotheosis of Tim Russert has found it’s fitting climax in a Presidential Library [and Museum!]. Russert narrates the Lincoln Library’s “Campaign 1860” exhibit, and Springfield’s State Journal-Register is leading calls to preserve it as a memorial within the memorial.
“Setting viewers straight on the views of candidates Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge and John Bell is the familiar, authoritative presence of Tim Russert…If a generation was to understand the bitterly contested presidential contest of 1860, who better to explain it than the man who guided America through the bitterly contested presidential contest of 2000?”
Indeed. Someday visitors may flock to the Springfield shrine to thrill to Tim. It can be the Tomorrowland of presidential museums, capturing forever how a major conduit for Bush administration Iraq flim-flammery could have such a hard hitting reputation.
Let’s Play House 
In the course of reviewing the surprising amount of action a young Doris Day got in her Hollywood years, the author of “Doris Day: Reluctant Star” has America’s Girl Next Door bonking future president Ronald Reagan, her co-star in “The Winning Team.”
“The two would sneak off to his apartment high in the Hollywood Hills and make love while marvelling at the panoramic view below.“
Those fearful this means Ronnie might have cheated on Nancy can take comfort in Day’s biographer’s claim that all the gazing and getting busy ceased with her 1951 marriage to Marty Melcher. Reagan’s Jane Wyman era ended in 1948 and he and the former Nancy Davis weren’t married until 1952.
Leaving a fair sized window for pre-presidential philandering without violating the sanctity of marriage.
Dance Fever 
He messes up the alleged setting for Richard Nixon’s jocular query if his conversation partner had “done any fornicating over the weekend,” but
“As difficult or unsettling as it might be to imagine, before Richard Nixon became U.S. president, he came here with his wife, Patricia, and led a congalike line between tables while warbling the refrain, “Severa … Severa … Severa.”
The club’s website is mute on this question.
Severa Silence 
When did this storied affair take place? One account has private citizen Nixon in Lisbon in 1963, winning future friends. Nixon cheered Portugal’s efforts to maintain white rule in Africa, a small preview of the Republican love affair with South Africa reluctantly ended when Apartheid did.
Offer May Not Apply In Your Area! 
The Clinton Administration and it’s fundament were much mocked for their “parsing” of facts. The current administration is more straightforward: they strive to keep facts from intruding on argument altogether.
In service of this noble cause they’ve gotten a federal judge to agree that the White House Office of Administration is not covered by the Freedom Of Information Act. This matters because the OA is at the center of the enduring mystery of the Bush Administration’s missing 5 million emails. Seemingly endless litigation has pried some information on the White House’s sabotage of adequate presidential paper preservation, but if the OA can’t be asked what documents it lost and when it lost them the picture may remain incomplete.
Leaving So Soon? 
President Bush’s thanks for the memories European tour came to London Sunday, with exciting news he’s swinging for the fences, trying to kill Osama Ben Laden before his term ends.
History is clearly on Bush’s mind. He’s huffing about his own steadfastness:
“I want it to be said about George W Bush that, when he finished his presidency, he looked in the mirror and [saw] a man who did not compromise his core principles for the sake of politics or the Gallup poll“
…and having historians to dinner.
What wisdom they will impart is questionable. Simon “an absolute fucking catastrophe” Schama is balanced with at least two Churchillian Greatness Sniffers.
Martin Gilbert:
“they may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill. Their societies are too divided today to deliver a calm judgment, and many of their achievements may be in the future: when Iraq has a stable democracy, with al-Qaeda neutralised, and when Israel and the Palestinian Authority are independent democracies, living side by side in constructive economic cooperation.”
Andrew Roberts:
“a lone voice told the truth unashamedly again and again until events forced the rest of the nation to listen. This brave politician faced public obloquy and collapsing political popularity, until he was proved right, when he became the most popular prime minister in recent memory. For Churchill, this apotheosis came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it will come when Iraq is successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction are unearthed from where they have been hidden by Saddam’s henchmen.”
