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Your Presidential Libraries Never Forget 

The world will little remember reaching for the remote, desperate to squelch George Pataki’s insulting reading of the Gettysburg address on the first 9/11 anniversary.

Some feared the vapid inanity of  2002’s commemorations could never be topped, but presidential libraries are doing their part.

Who Am I & Why Am I Here?  

Having apparently run out of things to say about either their nominal subjects or their periods, today’s presidential libraries seek to present themselves as founts of Everyhistory, places to mark any odd occasion with history slapped on.

And try , if possible, to include motorcycles.

At least four presidential libraries will mark the decade since 9/11, each in their own baffling manner.

The Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library is at least in the same state as one target…but after that the relation gets kind of strained.

They will be displaying a chunk of metal from the World Trade Center wreckage.  

We might have enjoyed a retrospective on our relationship with our gallant Saudi Arabian ally, beginning with FDR’s quiet 1945 interlude with King Saud.

 Bush senior’s Library will also feature World Trade Center metal,

and they’ve rounded up some local rescue workers.

No word if Bandar Bush will show up.

 The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum has subcontracted

to the Boy Scouts, who will be hanging about all day.

And yes, they do have a chunk of the World Trade Center.

The Nixon Library will go all out for the memories. Sixteen tons of World Trade Center steel will arrive in ceremony Monday, and be available for public gawking all week. 

Keeping Up With The Kardashian

Tuesday will feature Angie Kardashian, one of the lesser known Kardashians.   Her claim to fame is post-9/11 firehouse cooking, not self-porning.

Let us pray 9/11 souvenirs don’t become the latest presidential library must have object.  At least until they all get their Berlin Wall chunks squared away.

 

  The Reagan Library will be bursting with 9/11 goodness.  The Library will serve as a start point for Simi Valley’s “Freedom Walk,” Donald Rumsfeld‘s effort to mashup the initially popular Afghanistan war together with Iraq in a delightful Freedom Smoothie.

                                                                                                                 Freedom Handshakes? 

The program will feature a 9/11 emergency worker, and they’ve dug up a prize. Out of all the rescue workers on the scene on 9/11, they’ve chosen the Scientologist.

  His “controversial” church got a reputation at the disaster site of proselytizing and sneaking around barricades, but  New York Fireman John McCole was their man on the inside.  

   

 

With her proven record of cult attraction, did the Scientologists get to Nancy Reagan? 

 The Reagan Library never lets a marketing moment pass, as they demonstrated with their 9/11 commemoration page.

 

 You’ll come to honor the dead,  you’ll stay to purchase souvenir Air Force One replicas.

….in that, like Reagan, his apologists will now rush to credit him with something that didn’t happen on his watch.

  “I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice “

The “Who Got  bin Laden” myth-making has already begun, with Republican House leaders reluctantly adding Obama to the Bush victory parade. 

Osama bin Laden: 

Your Washington Post reluctantly conceded that bin Laden died during Barack Obama’s presidency.     Homeland Security Committee Chair Peter King [Provisional IRA, New York] sees Bush’s empty bluster as the foundation of victory:  “President Bush deserves great credit for putting action behind those words.“And what words they were!  “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them!   The Twitter-sphere is awash in bizarre statements like  “Obama gets to enjoy the feeling of a (prior) cic’s victory.”    Forgotten in the wave of Bush Revisionism are Bush’s frenzied efforts to dot this particular “I” before leaving office.  And Obama’s weekend topping of the Gipper’s record by killing both a child and three of the strongman’s grandchildren.  Reagan only got one.*

*Subject to controversy as of August 2011

Freedom Sold Separately!  

National Treasure [& long time PresidentsRUs favorite] Al Kamen fills a Friday Washington Post column with updates on the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s exciting “Freedom Registry.”

As faithful readers are aware, the Registry lists donors to the Bush Library project, starting at the low low price of just $50.

Now Kamen reports it will not merly list of names on a wall, or inscribe them on a brick, but will entail the hallmark of late 20th century technology: interactivity!

“Using the latest technologies, this innovative registry will be housed in a specially designed kiosk and will feature an interactive listing of those chosen for this special recognition”

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 Never has self selection been more  meaningful.

Fries With That?

 

Bush donors are getting off easy.  The bandit princes of the Young America’s Foundation are soaking the rubes for a thousand dollars, in return for which their name is inscribed on the “Freedom Wall” tucked away out of sight on the Reagan ranch property.  Why these believers in Reagan’s Berlin Wall shattering Mighty Voice would build a wall is unclear.

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When Analogies Fail: Freedom’s Ramparts Or Iron Curtain? 

Old Reliable, Ronald Reagan, has been summened once more to freedom’s cause.  Or something.

Wonkette brings us this playful image from a Boston Teabag rally, and we can only speculate where the poster’s creator was coming from.

It appears that the Berlin Wall, having not yet crumbled at the sound of Reagan’s mighty voice, stands between Big Government and The People.

But since government derives its powers from the People, or God in fringey-er precincts, couldn’t The People sort of walk around the wall?

And wasn’t the Berlin problem that unhappy people were trapped on their side of the wall with an unfortunate government, not separated?

…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