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Nixon & Morris, Together At Last

Memories Are Made Of This   

First in peace, first in war, and first to build a gigundous museum for himself.  Franklyn Roosevelt’s great initiative to make history the way he liked it spawned our  glorious  presidential library industry, but what about the poor slobs before him?

Herbert Hoover built the first post-FDR prequel library, and we’ve recently had the Lincoln. But other Great Guys have been left to the mercies of families, local historical societies, and rich eccentrics.

But now, new hope for history’s remainders!

Congress is moving to correct the nation’s sad neglect of past presidents, offering the Pre-Hoovers matching funds if their mom and pop museums can claim to have raised new money.  The bill began as a straight subsidy of Staunton, Virginia’s exciting new Woodrow Wilson Library and Museum, which commemorates Wilson’s vital first [and only] year spent in the tiny burg.  Sponsors  then somehow morphed the bill into a past president catch-all,  introduced on September 11th to ensure that the terrorists don’t retrospectively win the War To End All Wars, or something.

Results may very in your area, but Staunton’s vital Wilson documents being “preserved” at  are largely copies of documents elsewhere, proudly boasting that:

“The archives microfilm collection includes the Wilson holdings at the Library of Congress and the National Archives.”

Making the entire enterprise somewhat beside the point except as “economic development.”

Reagan: Better Read 

Our gal chose to close last night quoting the sainted Ronald Reagan [after earlier misattributing “city on a hill” to Reagan, rather than John Winthrop, whom he quoted.]
And magnificent words they were.  The empty vessel that is Sarah Palin, already caught channeling FDR assassination fans on the glories of small town life,  was pumped up with yet another oddity from the Republican party’s controversiall past.

As was widely noted, Palin’s closer was lifted from Reagan’s “Operation Coffee-cup” crusade against Medicare, back when it was the opening wedge of socialism.

Near, But Not N’er  

Reagan worship takes many forms, most recently in the form of miraculous interventions from beyond.  His all-knowingness takes multiple forms, most acutely when He foresees our present troubles.

Sadly, one of the most popular instances never happened.  Many have enjoyed the Reagan diary item about a visit from his Vice President’s n’er-do-well son, but it’s a long disproved fake.

But it feels so good.

When A President Does It  

The romance of ex-president criminality thundered onto the silver screen by 1991’s “Pointbreak,” and the nation’s thieves and miscreants continue to tap their inner Patrick Swayze.

Who wouldn’t want to hang out at the beach, rob banks, and be pursued  by that dreamy Keanu Reeves.

The spirit was alive this past weekend in South Bend Indiana, as a man in a Nixon mask knocked off a gas station.

Crime isn’t all rubber masks and easy cash though. Years after Chicago Mob hangers-on hit a Saugatuck Michigan bank dressed as the Exs, the last of the gang has been caught and sentenced.

Getaway driver Carmine Jannece got five years, which may pose problems for the 84 year-old.