Super-performance! Â
Matthew Yglesias tries to make sense out of Gallop’s opinion polling on presidents by age, and comes up puzzled, especially by Kennedy’s over-performance across the ideological spectrum.
“I can’t imagine a coherent ideological viewpoint that would justify the high ratings Americans over-35 give to Kennedy… if you could take the Kennedy-Johnson years as a whole, then divide them up into one presidency that was dominated by Vietnam and another one that’s responsible for Civil Rights and the Great Society, then you’d have one shitty president and one great president. A lot of people seem to have basically decided to divide things up this way and call the shitty president “Johnson†while the good president is called “Kennedy.†That, however, doesn’t have a great deal to do with reality.“
 Meet Mohamed Nasheed, New Look President of the sun-kissed Republic of the Maldives.  He’s the Sarah Palin of the Indian Ocean, getting big play talking about selling his evil bad guy predecessor’s yacht on EBay.
Eventually we learned she hadn’t sold her predecessor’s jet on EBay at all, but for a loss elsewhere. And he’s been elected since October with no action.
Nasheed defeated a not nice person, Maumoon Gayoom, who indeed ran a repressive kleptocracy of which the boat and a presidential island retreat were symbols. But live by the symbol, die by the symbol.
Plain spoken Mr. Nasheed has gotten a lot of mileage as well from refusing the tacky gold-inflicted presidential palace Gayoom built.
 
But Nasheed has instead moved into the former Sultan’s palace, no slum.
If the Maldives ever gets around to selling the boat they may find the economic tide against them. When Iraq finally got title to a Saddam yacht which surfaced in Europe they hauled it back to Basra for lack of a buyer.
Land That Time Forgot  
We’re often told the mighty Information Wurlitzer that is the Internet will seek out and destroy untruth.
Offer may not apply in your area!
In Erie, Pennsylvania’s’s Danzig Corridor, the winters last longer, and the chill seems to prolong shelf life. The Erie Times News letters column has recently enjoyed a spirited debate based on a long exploded Bush fraud.
The Obama Era of Good Feeling was off to its spirited start, when former George W. Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card took powerful exception to the youngsters besmirching America’s Oval Office by appearing sans jackets. Card’s more in sadness had been barely emitted when photos of Bush’s own jacketlessness surfaced, and the world laughed.
But the Reverand John Detisch still felt the call, sallying forth in the local letters page on the strength of the legend, heedless of its death the week before.
“Please, Mr. President, don’t give in to so many other American men who are constantly lowering their standards. Lead us by example.“
Two weeks later, it fell to J. Spinelli to Speak for the Nation:
“Rev. Detisch, as you said in your letter, lead us by example. Get your facts straight.”
But clowning continues, in proud ignorance.
Roosevelt Gone Aground  
The dream of a Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library on an Oyster Bay, Long Island appears dead. Plans fluctuated between building on a flood plain, or above a tidal pool, and they never had any “Papers” for the “Library,” but they blame the economy’s collapse.
Or maybe it was all just a mad dream.
For My Next Trick, I Disappear! 
More than a year ago, a local resident tried to pin down the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s James Bruns on how it planned to pay for the estimated $120 million library. co
“Mike Giardina asked, “How much money does the TRA have in the bank?â€Mr. Bruns said they have pledges of $1 million.
Mr. Giardina: “And in the bank?â€
Mr. Bruns, “I’m not going to divulge that.“
Mr. Gardina: “You have zero. You have no website. Come on.â€
Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind    
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The recent Dallas Morning News warning of the George W. Bush Presidential Library‘s will to obscurity has been proven in life!
The Scourge of Baghdad, legendary Washington Post defense reporter Thomas Ricks was rightly appalled and amused at a New York Times report that the living monsters producing FOX’S “24”series are now touting their carbon-neutralness.
” This show should be relegated to an exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, perhaps in the discussion of whether you can win a war for your values by undermining them.“
The Foreign Policy Blog comment’s snap and verve are somewhat undermined by Ricks linking to one of the joke Bush Library sites which tower above the real one in Google searches.
