Onto Berlin

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The Berlin Wall has been down 18 years today, but America never tires of the old concrete chunks left over. Pieces grace all your finer Presidential Libraries, no matter how strained their relationship is to the Wall.

And we usually display them West side out with all the pretty graffiti.

Roosevelt: berlin-fdr.jpg only link is this hideous sculpture made by a Churchill Granddaughter from Wall.

Truman: berlin-westminster.jpg see where she got the semi-human shapes above? Still more Churchill relative art at Westminster College where Truman invited Churchill to let rip.

Eisenhower: none – Wall but a gleam in Walter Ulbrecht’s eye then. ulbrecht.jpg

Kennedy: berlin-kennedy.jpg because it was built on his watch?

Johnson: sadly, no.

Nixon: berlin-nixon.jpg because it existed simultaneously with his Presidency?

Ford: berlin-ford.jpg same as above, and US established diplomatic relations with DDR.

Carter: none.

Reagan: berlin-reagan-bust.jpg leapt into the future and tore down his own-self.

Plus one inside: berlin-2nd-reagan.jpg

Plus at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC: berlin-reagan-bldg.jpg

Plus one at the “Reagan Ranch” [downhill from it in Santa Barbara]: berlin-yaf.jpg

Bush: berlin-bush-outdoor.jpg fell while in office.

Another, indoors: berlin-bush-indoor.jpeg

Other Americans have different ways of displaying the Wall: berlin-las-vegas-the-mens-bathroom-at-the-main-street-station-hotel-and-casino.jpg

Like Ike?

The Bush Administration put out word that it’s no camera torture briefing was somehow inspired by a photograph of an Eisenhower White House event. eisenhower-press-conference.jpg

Eisenhower had other redeeming qualities. In the photo below he is witnessing a demonstration of torture techniques at the just liberated Ohrdruf concentration camp.

[Unlike Ronald Reagan, Eisenhower actually witnessed the camps.]


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Gambling, With History!

truman-poker.jpg Gambling Great Harry Truman

Poker News calls the roll of Presidential poker players: Grant, Harding, both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon. They are summoning up the ghosts of gaming past to defend….online gambling!

“It’s hard to imagine that a pastime that these men, arguably considered pillars of American history, could be condemned by so many just because there is an element of luck and gamble mixed in with the skill needed to be successful in the game.Perhaps America’s legislators should take a look at these presidents and the game of poker in America’s history before condemning the online gambling industry. If the game is good enough for presidents to play, it’s good enough for people to be playing online from the comfort of their own homes.”

Better press than usual for Warren Harding – moving on up!

Barry Bad Witness To History?

landau-barry.jpg Man and mementos

The Associated Press presents Barry Landau as international man of mystery, dancing with queens and first ladies when he isn’t precociously worming his way into an Eisenhower White House invitation. Since then they claim he has been operating at the nexus, working the fulcrum, and in and of himself representative of the convergence of all we hold dear in politics and entertainment.

And snagging a lot of tchotskis over the years. Some of his collection will be reflected in “The President’s Table: 200 Years of Dining and Diplomacy,” first of a threatened three volumes of Presidentish stuff.

“He’s the kind of guy you may not notice in the pictures with celebrities. He is 59 and has been in the company of presidents for nearly 50 years. He is tall and bearded, with a home full of history and a head crammed with names, like boxes in an overstuffed closet ready to tumble out.”

One name that doesn’t tumble out in AP’s account is Hamilton Jordan.

Landau was supporting witness to allegations that Jimmy Carter Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan carter-hamilton-jordan.jpg used cocaine during a visit to Studio 54, the New York nightclub which from almost any perspective symbolized everything wrong with America in the 70s.

studio-54-ny-3.jpg Drugs were the least of their problems

Club owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager faced prison for tax evasion, and offered up Jordan’s name as plea bargain bait. Their attorney was sinister New York fixer Roy Cohn, mccarthy-roy-cohn.jpg Joe McCarthy’s former counsel.

Cohn, clubbing. cohn-roy-birthday-party-studio-54.jpg

The Special Counsel* appointed to investigate the allegations rejected them, and found Landau to be, shall we say, a questionable witness:

“There were only three people who claimed to have direct information concerning Mr. Jordan’s alleged use of cocaine in Studio 54: Rubell, Johnny C., and one Barry Landau. As witnesses, the most charitable thing that could be said about them was that they were utterly unbelievable….Landau claimed that on the evening of June 27, 1978, while at Studio 54, Mr. Jordan asked him for cocaine. Despite what he had said on the 20/20 program, however, when we pressed him, he did not claim to have any knowledge that Mr. Jordan in fact took cocaine that night. Landau said he did not hear Mr. Jordan ask Rubell or anyone else for cocaine, did not hear any other discussions about cocaine, and did not see Mr. Jordan or any other member of the Jordan group take cocaine. He also said that prior to August 24, 1979, he was never told by Rubell or anyone else that Mr. Jordan had taken cocaine in his visit. Landau declined to be interviewed by the FBI about June 27, 1978.20…Although Landau said that other persons were with Mr. Jordan that evening when Mr. Jordan asked Landau for cocaine, each of those persons explicitly denied that Mr. Jordan asked anyone for cocaine in his presence. I had very serious doubts about Landau’s credibility under any circumstances.”

None of this stops Landau on the book tour. He’s planning to hit the Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Bush Presidential Libraries, and for some reason doing both the Ford Archive and Ford Museum on separate days.

Somehow he is skipping the Carter Library.

*Youngsters may not recall, but one part of the hell that was the 70s was the appointment of Special Counsels at the hint of White House impropriety.

Fantasy Island

cuba-just-a-hop-and-you-are-in-cuba.jpg

It was like old times for Representative Duncan Hunter at the Orlando Republican Presidential debate.

Specifically 1961. cuba-playa-giron-stamps.jpg

While most of the GOP candidates are content to bask in the warm glow of Ronald Reagan single-handedly toppling the Berlin Wall, Hunter has other roll back campaigns in mind. He’s going after Fidel! cuba-castro-playa-giron.jpg

Or at least making the claim that Kennedy sold out the Bay of Pigs []Playa Giron] invasion, launching the lily-livered “Democrat” party of today.

A bold statement considering who held office castro-nixon.jpgwhen Castro came to power, and which administration cooked up the invasion. [The hearty endorsement of our death-squad allies in El Salvador is also refreshing]

“This is a historic venue.(APPLAUSE)

You know, 300 miles off this coast is a place where another party, once a great party, the Democrat Party, lost its identity. And that’s when, in 1961, the Cuban freedom fighters were struggling with a toehold on the beach, trying to take back Cuba from Castro and a Democrat president with an aircraft carrier sitting a few miles offshore said we will not help the freedom fighters.

And a thousand miles away from there is El Salvador, where a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, hung tough, brought freedom to El Salvador.

HUNTER: And you know something? Today, they are fighting side by side with our guys in Iraq.

(APPLAUSE)

We’re the party of freedom.”