WWW.PRESIDENTS"R"US.COM

Tall Tales Trashed 

From the wilds of academe comes the shattering of yet another right wing Barack Obama trope, his frequently complained about tendency to first-person pronounce himself into every occasion.

Except he doesn’t.

So we learn in Ben Zimmer’s New York Times review of social psychologist James W. Pennebaker’s  “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us.” In fact, “Obama has distinguished himself as the lowest I-word user of any of the modern presidents.”

Actual facts haven’t stopped past trafficers in Obama fashion faux-pas, teleprompter dependence, and furniture abuse tall tales, but although fastener complaints burgeon, we live in hope.

My Country, Writer Wrong  

Before they were [accused] felons….

Barry Landau, “America’s Presidential Historian,” remains in a Baltimore jail and a heap of trouble, accused of pinching presidential documents and ephemera from a Maryland archive.

Such trouble that his lawyer is directing attention to Landau’s alleged partner in crime, emphasising that Barry had none of the loot in his possession when arrested.

Barry Often Wrong 

We can all look forward to Landau’s credibility being tested at trial, the credibility of a man associated with McCarthy and Mafia mouthpiece Roy Cohn and  called a liar by a presidential special counsel, who claimed voicemail sniffer Rupert Murdoch inspired him  to write a book.  The veracity of a man who invents numbers and accounts for his “collections,” who this month shaved three years off a Woodrow Wilson visit to Iowa for a piece of CNN holiday fluff when he wasn’t filling space yammering on about flag desecration [against it!].

Barry sees what others can only imagine.

The”Presidential Historian” and dinner plate collector of the stars rushed to inform New York Post readers, and through them the world, that he alone spotted Tricia Nixon, daughter of  disgraced former President Richard Nixon among Macy’s  shoppers one day.  They, or at least Barry, recalled halcyon days of yore when Trish was married at the White House, an event memorialized in an Executive Mansion hallway, according to Barry.

Landau also shared the  good news that President Barack Obama recently placed a wreath at Nixon’s grave, a trick he managed without the White House or any news organ discovering it.

McNaughton’s Group  

Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.

Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!

McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:

“The information is historical. If it is not familiar to you – Google it.“

Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective.  Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height.   The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.

McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with  piano chords of doom.

Republican Tinkerbell

The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs:  free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.

Christie On A Stick! 

They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.

Lest we forget, some have imagined the mantel falling on Rubio’s leathery opponent, Charlie Crist.  Before his auditioning to become the Robert Byrd of the desert wastelands,  John McCain was considered amoung the Reagan Undead. Until he stumbled into a cracker history morass Virginia Governor Robert F. “Bob” McDonnell was seen, at least in Pat Robertson’s alternative universe, as Reaganesque. And South Korean hard man President Lee Myung-bak was Reagan walking until it was discovered voters didn’t thrill to the prospect of confrontation with the North.

But our favorite New Reagan of Today lives in South Africa:

  step forward President Zuma!

Reagan Inflation

The echos of Tim [who?] Pawlenty’s heartfelt tribute to Ulysses S. Grant had barely faded when eager young Republican cubs sprang forth to re-seal Grant’s Tomb.

Small but perfectly formed North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry  has introduced  legislation to banish Grant from his perch on the $50 bill, replacing him with a fellow all the kids love, Ronald Reagan.

The circle jerk of history is proven in McHenry’s press release.  Why must Grant go? He’s much less popular than Reagan, Historians Say.

Plausible, but which historians? Here we fall down an especially twisted conservative rat hole.

McHenry cites a 2005 survey of historians done for the honest brokers of the Wall Street Journal opinion operation, performed by the  law prof author of “Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 7th edition” on behalf of the focus of evil in the modern judiciary, the Federalist Society.    The Journal guy involved devotes much of his accompanying article to reassuring the faithful that while George W. Bush rated only average, his big bets might still pay off!

Given the sponsors you won’t be surprised to learn that the undisclosed historians panel was corrected for the “far left tilt” of the academy, stacking equal numbers of liberal and conservative historians.

Who knows. We don’t get to see the list, but the stage dressing screams that the fix is in.