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When Golf Was King fidel-golf.jpg

Golf Digest takes a loving look back at Eisenhower era on the links. Even they are astonished at Ike’s days wandering the fields, and a handy chart allows you to track his obsessive play day by day. eisenhower-golf.jpg

All part of a package of nostalgia and list making, the highlight of which is their lament for the death of Washington golf.

Thanks Guys! abramoff-scotland.jpg

Fixer to the stars Jack Abramoff’s Scottish trip ruined it for everybody apparently. No one admits to playing anymore, and…

“As a result of a ban imposed on gifts and services, lobbyists have to pay thousands of dollars to play in elected officials’ fund-raisers to spend time with them on the golf course — hardly a bonding opportunity.”

But Cavalier of Changetrademark.gif Barack Obama golfs, so hope springs eternal. obama-golfing.jpg

From Nixon to Castro

How Was I to Know? nixon-dismissive.jpg

Portfolio runs an excerpt from John Rosen’s The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate, focused on colorful 70s corporate bandit Robert Vesco.

Vesco’s currently doing the last years of a 13 year sentence in Cuba, jailed on murky charges after years of gilded exile in socialism’s southern redoubt. vesco-cuba.JPG

But once he was somebody, with the SEC investigation of his activities to prove it. Leading to the scene where Vesco’s bag men deliver wads of cash to Richard Nixon’s chief re-election fundraiser Maurice Stans.

“Here were three upright members of the Greatest Generation, one carrying a briefcase stuffed with $200,000 in $100 bills. No one present likely harbored any delusions that the cash was being delivered—anonymously and past the lawful date—because Vesco had such passionate beliefs about détente or wage and price controls.”

Life Is Unfair, Cuban Division

kennedy-bay-of-pigs-flag.jpg And Their Flag Is Still Here

Miami may be knocking down the Orange Bowl, the sports stadium storied in legend and song, and the site of John Kennedy’s 1962 encounter with Bay of Pigs veterans ransomed from Cuba.

kennedy-flag-view-bay-of-pigs.jpg Shadow of a Gunman

The event came off despite exile claims Kennedy sabotaged the invasion by withdrawing American air support, and Kennedy received the Brigade 2506 flag.

castro-orange-bowl.jpgThe Orange Bowl will now miss another event, the planned celebration of Castro’s death.

The First Victim

You can’t find your place in history when someone shuffles the pages

2.JPG

From washingtondecoded via historynewsnetwork comes a new interpretation of Lyndon Johnson’s decent into Vietnam: LBJ, the Best & the Brightest’s first victim.

“What Did LBJ Know About the Cuban Missile Crisis? And When Did He Know It?” pivots on the fact that  Johnson was cut out of the final deal which settled the Missile Crisis. Johnson was somewhat involved in Kennedy Administration policy making during the events, but nobody told LBJ the US pulled it’s missiles from Turkey in trade for Soviets taking theirs from Cuba. Then or later.

Leaving the Sage of the Pedernales to buy the hype: cool, calm JFK masterfully staring down the blinking Russians. 3.JPG

Que Vietnam! vietam-siagon-falls.jpg


“False history led to mistaken lessons, including a belief in the efficacy of calibrated force, which helped prevent Johnson from seriously entertaining the concessions necessary for a negotiated political solution to the Vietnam War… not only was LBJ deliberately shut out as vice president, but the tape recordings show that he was still in the dark years after he became president, when he was presumably entitled, and urgently needed, to understand the knowable truth behind Kennedy’s spectacular success…. LBJ’s unspoken presumption was that the same men who were at Kennedy’s side in October 1962 would surely see Johnson through to a similar, unmitigated victory, regardless of the differences. And if they could not, conversely, that suggested something LBJ did not want to countenance: that the only real difference was in the president who led this assemblage of the best and the brightest.”

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.”