Telling Tales 
Having done his part to continue the Clinton era celebration of Harry Truman’s muscular liberalism, Peter Beinart is casting his eyes back further, to the glories of Wilsonian foreign policy.
It’s somehow to be different from George W. Bush Wilsonism. 
Beinart presents a highly selective version of Wilson, what he might call “coherent.” It’s heavy on Wilson’s doomed world vision for after that messy war he joined. Wilson without tears – no unhappy interventions in Russia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua [inherited], no teaching the Mexicans to elect good men.
It’s gonna be great.
“McCain’s singular focus may be more easily grasped; Obama’s broader catalogue could end up sounding less like a vision than a list. Collective security offers a way of linking these disparate concerns and telling a coherent story about today’s problems and how to solve them…In 1916, Woodrow Wilson talked of “a common order, a common justice and a common peace.†In the 2007 Foreign Affairs article in which he set out his foreign policy views, Barack Obama wrote about “common threats,†“common security,†and a “common humanity.†America’s fate and the world’s fate, both men were trying to say, are ultimately indivisible. We rise together or fall together. Never has the world so badly needed to hear these words from an American president, and never have the American people been so prepared to embrace them. Wilson’s dream has been too long deferred. The time to revive it is now.”
Dreams From My Fathers 
Barack Obama continues his stroll with greatness, now planning to hype the Reagan and JFK comparisons to dizzy new heights by taking his act to Berlin.
Other pols have gotten some of that Platz Pizazz too. 
The Wall may be gone, but lives in voters of a certain age’s mental film archives. Combined with the incessant cable news dribble and drone about “iconic imagery,” he should have a good day.
And the expected Obama lovefest from Germany’s most left-wing city may resonate with those Americans who cringe at the image George W. Bush has projected abroad recently.
There’s a lot to overcome, even on the ground in Berlin. 
The justly hated new American embassy is convenient to the Brandenburg Gate, so over time all the world can come to appreciate this really nice college dorm building.
Invisible Man 
The timeless aura of Plain Speakin’ & Brisk Walking Harry Truman claims another victim.
The 2008 campaign has already featured John Mccain wistfully recalling halcyon days when Truman strolled the capitol, accompanied by a single Secret Service agent.
Barack Obama has topped that on a visit to the Independence shrine, imagining Truman did it with no security.
“The thing that I envy most about Truman was that when he was in the White House, he could go out and take a walk. He could put on that fedora and take a stroll, without someone following himâ€
Obama had better watch his back. While he hit the Truman Memorial Building, and Truman’s home, Obama skipped the Truman Library, making the Library Board Chairman all huffy.
Trumanesque or Trumanish? 
Signed, Sealed & Disappeared 
Barack Obama’s campaign has yanked the cheesy presidentish seal that has been called mocking, outrageous, and possibly illegal by somewhat fevered observers.
The real crime of course is burdening the eagle with the existing Obama graphic 
– it still looks like a small town electric co-op logo.
No word if the Reagan Library will drop or modify it’s presidential sealish jelly jar adorning design. 
On to Buffalo! 
William McKinley’s last use in a contemporary campaign was Karl Rove’s mad scheme to present George W. Bush as the Big Mc of our generation, achieving solid Republican rule by persuading the scruffies to vote against their interests.
It worked with Bush, at least as far as the minstrel show 2000 campaign. It might again, but seems twice-musty for the already age-inflicted John McCain. The fighting Arizonan made the comparison anyway to USATODAY, dismissing Barack Obama as the new boy orator:
“If it was simply style, William Jennings Bryan would have been president.”
Gold Standard References 
