Ronald Reagan: Live The Fantasy!

Republican Tinkerbell

The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs:  free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.

Christie On A Stick! 

They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.

Lest we forget, some have imagined the mantel falling on Rubio’s leathery opponent, Charlie Crist.  Before his auditioning to become the Robert Byrd of the desert wastelands,  John McCain was considered amoung the Reagan Undead. Until he stumbled into a cracker history morass Virginia Governor Robert F. “Bob” McDonnell was seen, at least in Pat Robertson’s alternative universe, as Reaganesque. And South Korean hard man President Lee Myung-bak was Reagan walking until it was discovered voters didn’t thrill to the prospect of confrontation with the North.

But our favorite New Reagan of Today lives in South Africa:

zuma-dances.jpg  step forward President Zuma!

Reagan ’08: Swooning in St. Paul

 

Mount Up & Ride   reagan-2008-rnc-tribute.JPG

It’s come to this: Vaseline-lensed Ronald Reagan nostalgia mobilized as the bridge between the today’s grim reality and yesterday’s failed successor, who spun tales about the Republican nominee to be.

Right Said Fred   thompson-mccain-prone.JPG

bush-2008-convention-remote.JPG  President Bush managed to scrape up a satellite link to the Republican convention, Reagan weaved his magic from beyond the grave, and then spirits sank in the jowly presence of one of the party’s legion of New Reagan burnouts,  Fred Thompson.

What was the source of Reagan’s special magic? He was a Maverick!

…the media despised him,  they called him an outsider.”
The convention video also pointed to President From The Future Reagan prophesying McCain’s provocative “Country First” slogan,  as demonstrated by jaunty hat usage while serving stateside in the great war.reagan-2008-convention.JPG

king-john-cnn.jpg   CNN’s thoughtful John King swooned that “for any American watching it was a nostalgic trip back in time,” building on the great media tradition of getting all dreamy at the mention of Reagan.

The Voice From The Grave

nixon-with-tape-transcripts.jpg ABC’s resurrection of Richard Nixon’s Fred Thompson observations [“dumb as hell,” “he isn’t very smart, is he?”] has stirred the legions of Nixon nostalgists from their slumbers.

nixon-go-back.jpg

Presidential Multiple Guess Quiz Dean Paul Slansky tears back onto the field with a Huffington Post offering, “Contempter-in-Chief: The Richard Nixon Quiz,” demonstrating that Thompson got off easy.

Whether calling George Scultz “candy-ass,” Ronald Reagan “strange,” or sharing his views of the “SEC Jewboys,” Nixon never disappoints.

Paul Slansky: National Treasure. nixon-healing-richard-nixon.JPG