Take Nancy Reagan, Please! 
“The Divine Gift of Motherhood” desperately tries to process the Palin Clothes Express into the simple country girl narrative, and somehow comes up with the haunting parallel of…..Nancy Reagan!
Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller’s calls Palin a misunderstood Everygal in need of a beauty boost:
“Most of us need a little help to look absolutely fabulous. You can almost see yourself being put into her position, becoming a surprise vice-presidential nominee, with a newborn baby and nothing appropriate to wear. You know your looks are going to be scrutinized from head to toe and all around. Considering that the entire budget spent on her behalf actually could have been spent on one outfit, by some of the rich elite, I think she was her frugal self.”
Indeed.
Further point-missing erupts when Gerold-Miller takes comfort from history, in this case the sunny version of herself Nancy Reagan presented last year in a White House fashion retrospective at the Reagan Library.
“What comes to mind most easily is a similar controversy over the pricey, high fashion clothing worn by the elegant Nancy Reagan. Most of the clothes were borrowed, and some were donated by the designers. Many of the pieces were in turn donated by Nancy, as is the intent of Palin.”
Nancy Reagan took dresses as gifts, didn’t report them, promised to reform when she got caught, and kept doing the same thing throughout Reagan’s administration.
Androids! 
….And choose to present herself as a great philanthropist by retroactively donating some of her ill-gotten gains.
The show closes next week, although Betsey seems to think it opens then.
There’s Something About Joans
AstroTurf and Internet sock puppets are valued tools in the hope chest of propaganda, but one Reagan Library fan has fallen back on a steady method appropriate for America’s Sunset President
– the letter to the editor from a deeply concerned citizen.
Joan Marie Patsky is a realtor who donates to the Library, but she doesn’t let this connection cloud her vision one bit.
The Reagan Library’s new Discovery Center features students reenacting of the Grenada invasion, and even as fizzy event as that is presented in a spectacularly hoked up version.
Joan is so thrilled by the place she’s written various papers at least three letters to the editor praising the new vision quest.
She states the kool-aided uncontradictable:
“Creative education recently took a giant leap forward at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s grand opening of the Air Force One Discovery Center in Simi Valley“
She furthers the Reagan Library’s mission 
to insert Nancy Reagan into as many contexts as possible, while confusing the real plane for a fake one:
“There is also a replica of the historic Boeing 707 Air Force One aircraft that carried the president and Mrs. Reagan on important missions that shaped global history.”
But sometimes she gets that it’s a real plane in service of the make believe:
“the powerful presence of the Presidential Air Force One Boeing 707 that is a historical symbol of the Reagan policy of a strong national defense and proactive involvement in global diplomacy.”
And sometimes the vapors overcome her and she makes no sense at all:
“Let education be the destination and experience the human dignity values of American democracy!”
Let’s Play House 
In the course of reviewing the surprising amount of action a young Doris Day got in her Hollywood years, the author of “Doris Day: Reluctant Star” has America’s Girl Next Door bonking future president Ronald Reagan, her co-star in “The Winning Team.”
“The two would sneak off to his apartment high in the Hollywood Hills and make love while marvelling at the panoramic view below.“
Those fearful this means Ronnie might have cheated on Nancy can take comfort in Day’s biographer’s claim that all the gazing and getting busy ceased with her 1951 marriage to Marty Melcher. Reagan’s Jane Wyman era ended in 1948 and he and the former Nancy Davis weren’t married until 1952.
Leaving a fair sized window for pre-presidential philandering without violating the sanctity of marriage.
No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy 
Jackie Calmes reports a glitch in the Democrats unity stampede:
“Some in the Clinton camp also noted a possible problem for a party-unity ticket: Bill Clinton may balk at releasing records of his business dealings and big donors to his presidential library.”
Purdum Pulls The Trigger 
The latest on Bill “my office is in Harlem” Clinton’s adventures is served up in Vanity Fair‘s July issue by the magazine’s own star map of Washington, Todd Purdum.
It’s a delightful medley of old scandal and new.
Reviewing Clinton pants-down matters, Purdum reports on “… recent high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip that Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California,” but Gawker had this almost six months ago.
Purdum does better provoking post presidential spokesman Jay Carson on Clinton pal and billionaire boys club headmaster Ron Burkle. Carson reveals a longing for the opposition’s Fuhrer Principle:
“The ills of the Democratic Party can be seen perfectly in the willingness of fellow Democrats to say bad things about President Clinton. If you ask any Republican about Reagan they will say he still makes the sun rise in the morning, but if you ask Democrats about their only two-term president in 80 years, a man who took the party from the wilderness of loserdom to the White House and created the strongest economy in American history, they’d rather be quoted saying what a reporter wants to hear than protect a strong brand for the party. Republicans look at this behavior and laugh at us.”
A thorough reading of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal leads Purdum to conclude Clinton is asking for bad press.
“But it is also beyond dispute that Clinton has blended the altruistic efforts of his philanthropy with the private business interests of some of his biggest donors in ways that are surpassingly sloppy, if not unseemly, for any former president.”
Purdum’s catchall excuse for differentiating Clinton from the cash which flowed to former president’s Reagan, Bush, and Ford is that “their wives never ran for president,” as though Clinton coverage only started with Hillary’s run. The current White House occupant goes unmentioned, along with Barbara Bush using the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund as a pass-through to troubled son Neil.
Mama Tried 
