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Survey Says 

C-SPAN’s presidential historian survey holds many thrills: the inexorable rise of Bill Clinton, how far from bottom     George W. Bush has settled, but the historians themselves hold their own excitement.

Who are these guys?

The mysteries of “presidential historian” credentialing are many, and among this crew are some rather odd characters.

In his writings Joseph Persico confused Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, confused Teddy’s daughter’s name with his sister’s, and got the year Roosevelt was elected in his own right wrong.

Stanley Renshon is perhaps best known for utterly missing the point of Stephen Colbert’s legendary appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.   Colbert’s jolly mockery of the media’s deference to President Bush was the evening’s theme, but in Renshon’s view it was all terrible les majesty aimed at Bush.

“It is a testament to Mr. Colbert’s lack of perspective that he could even consider making such remarks. It is also a testament to the view, that he apparently shares, that when it comes to Mr. Bush, no level of crass rudeness is inappropriate…He owes the President and Mrs. Bush an apology.“

The utterly weird Paul Kengor tosses off articles with titles like “What Bush And Moses Have In Common,” and loses himself in reveries over Ronald Reagan’s life-guarding and the 77 lives he claims he saved:

“I believe it’s not an exaggeration to draw a straight line from Reagan at the Rock River to Reagan at the White House.“

Carl Sferrazza Anthony’s claim to fame is as Historian for the highly dubious National First Ladies Library, absorbing most of their salaries not paid to the wife of their former Congressional patron.

One Nation, Duel Exhaust   

American’s strange compulsion to man-up presidents by linking them to motorcycles opens an exciting new chapter in Springfield, where somehow it was felt appropriate to display an Abraham Lincoln Harley Davidson.

This year has already seen the now sadly closed Art of The Chopper  exhibit at the Clinton Library.

George W. Bush posed on a motorcycle for   the 2004 campaign,

for the traditional  Harley factory tour,

and in Indonesia for some reason.

Bush invited the Rolling Thunder cavalcade to the    White House and proudly donned the leather vest, joining their crusade to save America’s somehow still missing POWs through, um, riding motorcycles. 

But don’t worry, it’s not all choppers and babes.

Lest we lose this potential presidential teaching moment, the 2004 Bush bike features the Preamble to the Constitution on the tank, and the Lincoln bike features “replica shackles ‘representing the issue of slavery’).”

Greatness Comes Early On Long Island 

The Economist features a roundup of current presidential naming activity, and not surprisingly there appears to be no last minute rush to name things for the outgoing fella.

Instead, waves of hope crash over towns and municipalities, school boards and city councils, as a net-aroused citizenry demands Barack Obama’s name be slapped onto any and all available public real estate.

Only small advances so far.

Hempstead Long Island [or in an eccentric English spelling, “Hamstead”] is proud home to Barack Obama Elementary School,    claimed as the nation’s first.

There have been setbacks.

His Name was rejected in Tacoma Washington, Marin County California,  and Valley Stream Long Island.

The record  on road naming is mixed as well. St.Louis may finalize naming a boulevard for Obama this month,  but an effort in Hollywood Florida will have to go through the Republican state legislature. Opa-locka Florida has gone ahead with slapping his name on an existing street, furthering the irritating South Florida tradition where every other street seems named for Ponce De Leon and Commissioner Andrea Rubin, along with some original 1920’s developer.

Barack busting out all over has provoked an unusually moronic backlash.

Mark Impomeni isn’t afraid to salute brave Valley Streamers for standing up to the name change artists…

“The parents who balked at the name change were wise to do so, for “tradition” or any other reason.“

…before moving on to the real fun: pissing once more on Bill Clinton.

The shocking facts

“Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency twice. Yet Wikipedia lists no naming of a school for him in its list of accolades that the former president has received since he left the White House”

No higher authority than Wikepedia’s citizen encyclopedists exists, but sadly they missed a few here, and led Mark astray.

The Ghost Who Walks  

There’s the William Jefferson Clinton Elementary School in Compton California, Sherwood Arkansas William Jefferson Clinton Elementary School [he spoke at its dedication] and the William J Clinton Elementary School of La Joya, Texas. [Google: embrace it!]

The current fellow isn’t faring so well.

  His visit to the apparent sole Bush-named school in Stockton California is elaborately documented on the White House site.

No one seems to care, and while carrying water for Israel earned Bush the notion of a “Bush Center” in Israel, the Knesset killed the idea in 2007.

         Together Forever!       

Mr. President is doing his part to crash the Clinton Foundation web site, joining the aggrieved and the whimsiclay curious in pawing through these givers to the greater good of Bill Clinton.

As so many have cautioned, early trawling has been limited by the slowness of the site when it functions at all.

Amidst the proud donations of our Middle Eastern allies, some other curiosities appear.

Why does the public University of Florida appear among the $50-100,000 donors?

In the loftier one to five million donor band is a “Presidential Inaugural Committee” [left over 1997 money?] and the Princess Diana Memorial Fund.  The latter might be a pass through for some common project on AIDS, although there is no mention of one on the Fund’s site.

The two big haired Nineties personalities do share an interest in cluster bombs: he dropped them in and about Kosovo,  and her foundation attempts to clean them up.

                    

                                                                             “This is what the world should be like”   -Bill Clinton

The Mrs. has a shiny new job, but Bill Clinton is enjoying a final moment in the sun, following his heart.  In this case his heart leading him to the unsavory regime in Malaysia, where he fell into his old bad habit of overpraising his “complicated” hosts.

Bill’s principal sponsors were the Petra Group and it’s largest shareholder, the Sekhar Foundation, whose dubious practices have attracted outrage from other shareholders and a lawsuit, since settled, by he-man actor Bruce Willis.

Clinton showered them with praise, and went on to embrace any and all powers in Malaysia, no matter how unattractive. The Indian and Chinese minority suppressing, Mongol mistress murdering Malaysian elite got to bathe in the former president’s warm assurance that they were serving humanity by their very existence.

 The Studs Terkel Of SE Asia?