“Turning Bo, the White House Dog, into a Teachable Moment“

Short of Checkers’ role in Nixon’s career, no.

Stache N’ Plate?  

You hate to give the formless mass that is MTV credit, but their news blog may have stumbled on something watching the Semi-State Of The Union.

Is Barack Obama growing a mustache?

                                Too soon to tell, but as your  Engaged & Underage HQ notes, something may be up.

Wednesday Obama announced his latest Commerce stalwart, and once again ambiguous  upper lip action was present.

                                                                         This never would have happened when Kurt Loder was alive.

Book Him 

The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning arts critic Mark Feeney has solved the Presidential Library/Pharaoh-ization problem: Make Obama go first!

It’s a position our first African-American President has been in many times before, and why not round out Black History Month by renouncing the building of his all but inevitable Presidential Library?

I agree with almost everything Feeney says about these places – the terrible history, bad architecture, and overall waste of these monuments to would-be greatness.

But why start with the new guy? George W. Bush has yet to announce a design, much less break ground – that one could be strangled in its birth. The Carter Library will be is closed most of this year in order to sink another $10 million into the place.  And despite Feeney’s claim that the Nixon Library finally got his papers in 2007, they are still building,          and the papers are not expected on site until Fall 2009.

The established Presidential Libraries are rotting from within, and could be left to wither.  But why does Barack Obama have to be first?

He Knows Civil War! 

Civil War Bookshelf has discovered that all are not enamored with the Lincoln-ifcation of Barack Obama.

“The Fourth International is fed up with Lincoln/Obama comparisons in the mass media:

‘Attempts to portray Obama as the heir of Lincoln’s legacy involve a grotesque historical and political falsification. Lincoln will forever be associated with one of the great progressive causes in history—the emancipation of the slaves and the destruction of the Southern slave-owning oligarchy in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Obama, on the other hand, bears only a negative and reactionary relationship to the great political questions of his day.'”

Trotskyism is a fantasy wonderland of factions, fractions, and preparatory committees to really do something about getting together. The Bookshelf  has stumbled on one of the many, many groups, grouplets and ghost armies claiming to Be the Fourth International, World Party of Socialist Revolution, although it casually insulted them by calling them Trotskyites, not the vastly preferred Trotskyists.

CWB is quoting from the International Committee of the Fourth International, whose dominant affiliate is the US Socialist Equality Party [perhaps the lamest name in Trot history].

Here’s what the US Trot Family Tree looks like  [the Obama denouncers are 6th from the left at the bottom]:

  A thousand schools of thought contend worldwide for the 4th International Franchise, with some combination of 4s, hammers, and sickle branding.

                  

And yes, t-shirts are available! 

Blogger Dimitri Rotov points out that the civil war history is often treated as fodder for random claims about freedom, destiny and personalities. His Civil War Bookshelf recognises that splintery though they may be, the Trots at least try to engage in real discussion.

“At this point in the ongoing orgy of “public history” I’m desperate for some intellectual standard in historical evaluation. I’ll even take it from the communists. “

Dead White European Males, Monumental Addition 

 

The Washington Post marks President’s Day Eve profiling Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall, who offers an entertaining add-on to the Washington Monument.

What finer place to commemorate Nat Turner’s    slave rebellion?

The sly artist told the Post that  Barack Obama’s election  is all well and good…

“But the moment that Nat Turner appears on a postage stamp…is more of a turning point.”