These Are Those Pants 
Reagan-naming Americans like these proud Hoosiers won’t let the flooding of the often troubled Reagan Parkway stand in the way of their ribbon cutting.
The off road ceremony was reminiscent of Reagan’s Second Inaugural, with it’s death cheating avoidance of a William Henry Harrison situation by moving indoors. 
The official rationale for the iron wave of Reagan-named people, places and things is his place in the beating heart of the American public.
But those perennial scolds at FAIR remind us of some actual facts about the gaseous vapors of public opinion. Despite strenuous efforts to assert his enduring love affair with the American people, Ronald Reagan’s approval in office scored lower than most post World War Presidents. Lower than Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and sad old Lyndon Johnson.
Even just before his 1980 clobbering, poor Jimmy Carter was found to be personally more “likable” than Reagan in a comparable period.
Dreams From My Fathers 
Barack Obama continues his stroll with greatness, now planning to hype the Reagan and JFK comparisons to dizzy new heights by taking his act to Berlin.
Other pols have gotten some of that Platz Pizazz too. 
The Wall may be gone, but lives in voters of a certain age’s mental film archives. Combined with the incessant cable news dribble and drone about “iconic imagery,” he should have a good day.
And the expected Obama lovefest from Germany’s most left-wing city may resonate with those Americans who cringe at the image George W. Bush has projected abroad recently.
There’s a lot to overcome, even on the ground in Berlin. 
The justly hated new American embassy is convenient to the Brandenburg Gate, so over time all the world can come to appreciate this really nice college dorm building.
Bring Us Together 
Hearts aflutter at the Nixon papers in the US Archives Maryland facility – yes, they are still hanging on there until the Yorba Lindists build enough space in their “library” to hold actual documents.
Apparent National Archives intern Eneuman blogs about College Park creeps… until she meets a boy.
“I did meet a cute guy on the bus. Unfortunately he’s going back to wherever he came from-either Santa Barbara Cali or somewhere in Ohio. He was a researcher at the Nixon library and I met him on the bus. Had a discussion about the research, etc. He was soo my type (burly hiker hippie dude..kind of?)”
Still Pulling The Babes! 
Gambling With History 
Bill Bennett’s making things up again, and this time he’s not explaining what a “whale” is to impressionable youth.
True to his conservative ideals, Bennett is working with the past, plucking colorful anecdotes in service of, ah, something.
Bennett’s latest scam unfolds in his “America: The Last Best Hope, Vol. II” describing a Ronald Reagan photo op with Queen Elizabeth.
This big ball ‘o corn inspired the gullible enthusing: “God I Miss Ronald Reagan.”
Horse Scents
Hearts will broken when the story is revealed to be a fraud, and not a very fresh one.
Just Gassing 
A mild Googling turns up a 2004 version set in Kentucky. The always suave Jim Baker retailed it on Fox in 2006, undeterred by it’s past attribution, also false, to the first President Bush. One sign of just how tired the tale has become is that it made it into Rich Little’s justly mocked White House Correspondent’s Dinner performance.
SPECIAL BONUS ERRORS!
On the same book page as the fart tale, Bennett has Reagan as the first US President to address the British Parliament [he did not, he spoke elsewhere to some members].
For the same 1982 occasion Bennett re-enrolls 
David Owen in the Labour Party, a year after he’d huffed off to found and fail with the Social Democrats.
No, Backward Step! 
Oh, How They Laughed! 
Intrepid rakers of muck at Consortium News are still on the case of Iran-Contra, long after most of us have blurred Ollie North and Gordon Liddy in the Leather-Jacketed-Poseur-Infamous-For-Something category.
Who Did Which President Know…
…And When Did They Know Them? 
Their latest nugget is a draft report from the Congressional Iran-Contra investigation, exploring the domestic propaganda fallout of the scandal. The CIA was turned on the American people, Army Psy-Ops men were brought to Washington from Fort Bragg for the plot.
Kicking that Vietnam Syndrome, The Early Years 
All in service of the Reagan Administration’s scheme to fund Nicaraguan terrorists by selling weapons to Iran, defending itself from Iraq’s invasion. Which we were abetting, sending Donald Rumsfeld to wink at Saddam Hussein’s “terrorizing his own people“.
Reagan went into the plan fearing he’d be hung by his thumbs if word leaked. But he walked when Congress caved, confronted by Dick Cheney and other Iran-Contra Deniers, burying it’s report in the interests of reaching across the aisles to get things done in a bi-partisan fashion.
Too much can be made of the report, and is, but it’s worth reading as an early example of White House media manipulation which is now commonplace.
“…one of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators, was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists… This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan Administration’s policies.“
As Cheney demonstrated recently with Gerald Ford, he’ll use any stick to beat the dog. Kind words on the death of Ford became a consensus that Nixon got what he deserved, so Bush will be vindicated in the fullness of time too.
The Democrats never seem to learn to kick ’em when they’re down.
