Marked Down  
All the smart kids agree: Romney is the Republican John Kerry, the GOP’s cross to bare until their inevitable defeat in November. Â Versions have circulated since at least 2008.
What this line forgets is how close Kerry came in 2004, despite his charmlessness. Â Kerry got more total votes for president than any previous Democrat, eight million more than the equally charisma-challenged Al Gore. Bush won by hauling in every exurban mega-church goer Karl Rove could find, a dash of anti gay marriage referendums, plus some voter suppression secret sauce. Â Obama won in 2008 with his own epic turnout machine.
Republicans Determined To Strike In Us  
Who knows this far out, but where is it written that unlovable mopes can’t get ’em to the polls?
 White House Wannabe 
Proven comic resource Glenn Beck has returned to the headlines, through the unusual path of set decoration.
Becky has launched a new series of stirring web-cast addresses, taped in a make-beleave Oval Office.
He has a history of borrowed gravitas attempts in the past, including his MLK Makeover at the Lincoln Memorial, and a previous Oval-ation when he was still on cable.
Glenn’s fantasy White House is sort of a mash-up, with blue screens to add “punch” to his bold observations. When words fail to portray the hell-scape President Obama is leading us to, the pictures can take over. 
Beck’s pretend POTUS platform is a return to yesteryear in many ways, with the Bush era Churchill bust returned to its place of glory,  
 and the God-awful Bush Presidential Seal rug back in action.  Glenn apparently missed the Obama rug swap, with the attending “controversy.”
Tall Tales TrashedÂ
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.â€
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.
As America marked the 10th anniversary at ground zero with solemn ceremony, and Paul Simon, word comes of an exciting new cashing in on The 9/11 Experience®
Your Barack Obama action figure, standing over the bleeding corpse of Osama Bin Laden.
 Make My Presidents Day  |
 
   Kind of makes Bush’s pistol plaque seem somehow inadequate, doesn’t it? Â
Family Matters 
In dog that didn’t bark news, we’ve had no sightings of an Obama administration Rodham brother equivalent.
Or a Neil Bush lookalike.
But such is the volume of loose cash sloshing about the world that some of it is still, still available to the dimmest bulb of an out of power family.
When former President George W. Bush celebrates his finest hour this September 11, thoughts will naturally turn to other members of the Bush clan in exile.
Shifty Uncle Prescott has passed, Jeb Bush remains out of reach, brother Martin remains in the obscurity of the DC suburbs*, but good old Neil Bush is still out there, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.  National treasure Ken Silverstein has a great roundup of Neil’s post-Keating hustles on Salon.
Silverstein offers some hope that the arc of history does bend towards justice, or at least shrinking margins for evil. He reports Bush’s compensation for doing not much may be declining over time.
“It’s getting tougher to be a fixer who can’t fix much.“
[For more Neil delights see also here, here, here, and here.]
*For a slightly 911-trutherish tour of  Marvin’s picaresque business career see here.
