Retiring Type    

The Washington Post’s Howard Kutz is puzzled at the incessant media coverage of Barack Obama minutia, and for guidance he turns to grizzled George W. Bush handler Mark McKinnon

McKinnon is professionally awed at Obama’s mastery of image burnishing, contrasting him to Bush’s modest self effacement:

“the former president liked his privacy, was wary of the media and had an aversion ‘to anything that smacks of self-promotion.’“

Kurtz’s probing questions continue, turning to burly, bandito-mustachioed Thomas Friedman to understand why those leftest whiners seem so upset with Obama.

Puzzler 

…And We’ll Never Hear The End Of It

French President Nicolas Sarkozy joins the line of hero’s taking credit for Communism’s demise.

From the Daily Mail via Wonkette comes news that the small but perfectly formed pol has posted a Facebook photo and copy which appears to place him amidst Freedom’s Chiselers® taking a whack at the Wall the night it fell.

Sarko is in Berlin for the anniversary festivities, so his invented heroics should make him many new friends.

Also among the Berlin throng is Ronald Reagan offspring Michael Reagan. He is there to dedicate a Reagan room at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, an event so momentous it is unmentioned on the Museum’s website.

One of Michael Reagan’s honored guests will be the German Democratic Republic’s last Prime Minister, Lothar de Maiziere. The former PM may feel a special bond with former FBI informant Ronald Reagan as de Maiziere was forced from politics by accusations he’d been a Stazi informant under the DDR.

Barack Obama is not in Berlin, and his “World Freedom Day” proclamation leaves both Reagan and Sarkozy unmentioned.  Obama does coyly use the  phrase “Kiev to Capetown” in describing the consequences of the Wall falling, cruelly recalling Reagan’s, shall we say, complex  approach to Apartheid

Better Read   

The Thousand Oaks Acorn visits the Reagan Library, dipped in history.

From tiny acorns some mighty old chestnuts swell, as the Reagan Presidential Library finds a willing conduit for its Berlin Wall fantasies.

The Library is going all out to forever tie the Wall’s collapse to Reagan’s utterances, with the keen insights of  “exhibit specialist” Rob Zucca showing Acorn the way.

Apparently, the Wall was a commie trap! 

“They [The Reds] always said it was a security wall to keep the west out. Well, it was to keep their people in.”

“The Library’s claim is the chipping away—and eventual removal—of the barricade paved the way for the reunification of Germany and the advent of freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe.”

– neatly reversing the actual sequence of events, in which the Wall was more the last act of East Germany’s internal collapse, which was itself one of the last Stalinist regimes to go.

Reagan Library director of communications Melissa Giller riffs on Reagan quotes of the 60s, 70s, and today, plugging in “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction” along with the inevitable Thatcher reference.

“It was his lifelong mission to bring the end of communism and he was able to do it, as Margaret Thatcher said, ‘without ever firing a shot’”

But as we now know, Mags opposed German unification, plotting with wiley Frenchman Francois Mitterrand to block it.

But  Giller cannot be restrained:

“…even today, there are places such as Iraq and Afghanistan where American soldiers are fighting for freedom and democracy.“They may not have a physical Berlin Wall,” she said, “but walls still exist.”

Indeed. 

                               This Is Not Happening! 

Feisty tabloid The New York Post reports Former Presidents Clinton and Bush have canceled a once mildly interesting sounding speaking event, vowing no longer to  “undoubtedly generate heated discussion as the best political minds of our day examine the most talked about topics surrounding current events.”

The two had been slotted to appear in the “Minds That Move The World” series at Radio City Music Hall, but the Post says they backed out after seeing the event’s lame hype.

Sites promoting the event are already scrubbed or strangely empty, and    now we will never know what these “minds” think “In light of the new political environment that faces our nation.“

MMM, Cake!

                                                                  

Bill Clinton revisited past triumphs Sunday, visiting embattled Kosovo to salute its quasi-independence from Serbia.

                                                                                                                           

And to unveil the vast statue of himself gracing Bill Clinton Boulevard in exotic Pristina.  A jaunty Bill is presented, clutching in one hand a portfolio or briefcase inscribed with the date bombing Serbia began.

Inglorious withdrawals and never were’s in Haiti and Somalia have yet to receive bronze commemoration.