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What We’re Made Of   

Ronald Reagan’s birthday is Friday, and it would appear America’s love affair with the leathery matinee idol can only be sated by fawning tome after fawning tome   on the cooing conservative.

    But the only Reagan book you really need this year is Will Bunch’s Tear Down This Myth.   The Philadelphia blogger has become a national treasure simply by resurrecting Reagan Library Executive Director Duke Blackwood’s explanation that the restless spirits of the age led to the Reagan Library having no Iran-Contra material on display:

“We’ve had it in. We’ve done many of the renovations and it was addressed. It’s out now and, at some point in time, we hope to bring it back. But again, that’s the fluidity of a museum. You can’t have the same thing, you know, for ten, fifteen, twenty years. You need to refresh.“

 

Make Way For Tomorrow: Duke & Friends Fill Space

The Hard Shell 

The New Yorker reports the latest on the effort to flog Laura “The Nice One” Bush’s tell-some memoirs, which has involved a series of publishing greats trekking to the White House to meet the Fightin’ Librarian before they sign up.

One publisher says it isn’t going well.

 

“I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had…But she really couldn’t have been nicer.”

And the hoped for softer side of Team Bush?

 “You got the sense she’s just like him.”

Others share the gloom:

“everyone was totally underwhelmed by her”

And as in so many Laura updates,  novelist and biographer-in-all-but-name Curtis Sittenfeld [American Wife]

goes for the kill:

“Sometimes when people share their thoughts it’s sort of disappointing.”

Tell Me A Story

                    

                                                                             “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?  

 Above & Beyond With Bill 

Some details of Bill Clinton’s Library disclosure deal became public Saturday, a selfless offering to the nation his handlers were careful to get out.

The path to announcing Hillary Clinton’s odd role as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State Monday will be smoothed by Bill releasing the names of his heretofore secret Library and Clinton Foundation donors, “beyond the requirements of law” as someone thoughtfully told the New York Times.

And they did it for the Sunday paper, for the sake of discretion.

“The disclosure of Mr. Clinton’s full agreement on a Saturday night might have the effect of drawing less attention to it while keeping the focus Monday on Mrs. Clinton.”

There is at least one catch. Senator Clinton has to get past the Senate, and then the information pours forth.  “Most” of the disclosure “will become effective once Mrs. Clinton is confirmed.”

The Obama camp may get advanced word, but the rest of us have to wait until she’s in her new office.  Then the  nation and the media who enjoyed matching Senator Clinton’s White House schedule with Bill’s blowjobs will have at it.

Until then…

Good Luck With That! 

Clinton representatives continue negotiations with the Barack Obama transition, trying to cut a deal allowing the disinfectant of democracy to shine upon the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Library, and Bill himself, reflecting their glory back upon America’s hoped for champion abroad, Hillary Clinton.

From press accounts it seems all rather murky.

What’s at stake is what Bill Clinton has, where he got it, and what he discloses. He’s not giving up without a fight, according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources:

“Mr. Clinton’s willingness to disclose future charitable and profitable ventures is consistent with his pledge during his wife’s presidential campaign. While he refused to release past donations and payments, these people say, he said he would disclose information going forward if Sen. Clinton became president. His pledge now to reveal some prior donations is a concession to the Obama team.”

And if anyone makes a fuss, he did it for the children:

“Mr. Clinton wouldn’t return any money already collected from foreign political and business leaders, even if it has stirred controversy, according to one person close to the talks, largely because those funds have been spent on programs such as campaigns to alleviate AIDS and hunger.”

The Hillary Clinton people appear to be giving themselves a defense in advance against any Bill Clinton money blow-back:

“One Democrat who advised her campaign said few of her senior strategists knew anything about the former president’s business arrangements and whether they would hold up under scrutiny if she won the nomination.”

And besides, so’s your old man:

“One Clinton adviser noted that former President George H.W. Bush has given paid speeches and participated in international business ventures since his son, George W. Bush, has been president — without stirring public complaints or controversy about a possible conflict of interest. “

The best part of the Journal story is that the Clinton negotiating team includes Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s dickish assistant.

Band’s comic stylings enlivened Senator Clinton’s sinking Presidential campaign, when writing as “The Office of Former President Clinton” he unleashed a weird and meandering complaint about a Todd Purdam’s Vanity Fair story saying Bill Clinton had lost it.

Part of Purdam’s offense to all things decent and Clinton was a claim that Band’s handbag magnate wife was insulted in the piece, apparently by the mention of handbags.