I-Universe: Barack Obama, Stuck On Himself?

Tall Tales Trashed 

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us


From the wilds of academe comes the shattering of yet another right wing Barack Obama trope, his frequently complained about tendency to first-person pronounce himself into every occasion.

Except he doesn’t.

So we learn in Ben Zimmer’s New York Times review of social psychologist James W. Pennebaker’s  “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us.” In fact, “Obama has distinguished himself as the lowest I-word user of any of the modern presidents.

Actual facts haven’t stopped past trafficers in Obama fashion faux-pasteleprompter dependence, and furniture abuse tall tales, but although fastener complaints burgeon, we live in hope.

9/11: What Becomes A Legend Most?

Your Presidential Libraries Never Forget 

The world will little remember reaching for the remote, desperate to squelch George Pataki’s insulting reading of the Gettysburg address on the first 9/11 anniversary.

Some feared the vapid inanity of  2002′s commemorations could never be topped, but presidential libraries are doing their part.

Who Am I & Why Am I Here?  presidential-libraries-us-map.jpg

Having apparently run out of things to say about either their nominal subjects or their periods, today’s presidential libraries seek to present themselves as founts of Everyhistory, places to mark any odd occasion with history slapped on.

And try , if possible, to include motorcycles.

At least four presidential libraries will mark the decade since 9/11, each in their own baffling manner.

The Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library is at least in the same state as one target…but after that the relation gets kind of strained.

They will be displaying a chunk of metal from the World Trade Center wreckage. 9/11 Steel I-Beam 

We might have enjoyed a retrospective on our relationship with our gallant Saudi Arabian ally, beginning with FDR’s quiet 1945 interlude with King Saud.

 


 Bush senior’s Library will also feature World Trade Center metal,

and they’ve rounded up some local rescue workers.

bandar-bush (1).jpg

No word if Bandar Bush will show up.



Scout Surge 9/11

 The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum has subcontracted

to the Boy Scouts, who will be hanging about all day.

 

And yes, they do have a chunk of the World Trade Center.

 

 

 

The Nixon Library will go all out for the memories. Sixteen tons of World Trade Center steel will arrive in ceremony Monday, and be available for public gawking all week. 

Keeping Up With The Kardashian

Tuesday will feature Angie Kardashian, one of the lesser known Kardashians.   Her claim to fame is post-9/11 firehouse cooking, not self-porning.

Let us pray 9/11 souvenirs don’t become the latest presidential library must have object.  At least until they all get their Berlin Wall chunks squared away.  


please-do-not-touch-the-berlin-wall.jpg

 

  Simi Valley Freedom Walk 2007-1The Reagan Library will be bursting with 9/11 goodness.  The Library will serve as a start point for Simi Valley’s “Freedom Walk,” Donald Rumsfeld‘s effort to mashup the initially popular Afghanistan war together with Iraq in a delightful Freedom Smoothie.

                                                                                                                 Freedom Handshakes? 

The program will feature a 9/11 emergency worker, and they’ve dug up a prize. Out of all the rescue workers on the scene on 9/11, they’ve chosen the Scientologist.

The Second Tower is Down

  His “controversial” church got a reputation at the disaster site of proselytizing and sneaking around barricades, but  New York Fireman John McCole was their man on the inside.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   


With her proven record of cult attraction, did the Scientologists get to Nancy Reagan? 


 The Reagan Library never lets a marketing moment pass, as they demonstrated with their 9/11 commemoration page.

reagan911sales.tiff

 You’ll come to honor the dead,  you’ll stay to purchase souvenir Air Force One replicas.

Barack Obama: Escaping The Sleazy Relations Cashing In Syndrome?

Family Matters 

In dog that didn’t bark news, we’ve had no sightings of an Obama administration Rodham brother equivalent.

Or a Neil Bush lookalike.

But such is the volume of loose cash sloshing about the world that some of it is still, still available to the dimmest bulb of an out of power family.

When former President George W. Bush celebrates his finest hour this September 11, thoughts will naturally turn to other members of the Bush clan in exile.

Shifty Uncle Prescott has passed, Jeb Bush remains out of reach, brother Martin remains in the obscurity of the DC suburbs*, but good old Neil Bush is still out there, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.  National treasure Ken Silverstein has a great roundup of Neil’s post-Keating hustles on Salon.

Silverstein offers some hope that the arc of history does bend towards justice, or at least shrinking margins for evil. He reports Bush’s compensation for doing not much may be declining over time.

It’s getting tougher to be a fixer who can’t fix much.

[For more Neil delights see also hereherehere, and here.]

*For a slightly 911-trutherish tour of  Marvin’s picaresque business career see here.

Foundering!

McNaughton’s Group   http://api.photoshop.com/home_e4b2cc204d524b3d823d04799a29b3dd/adobe-px-thumbnails/e065d085ea3e420992072ea49f8ed957/1024.jpg?md=1283986880000

Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.

Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!

McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:

“The information is historical. If it is not familiar to you – Google it.

Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective.  Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height.   The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.

McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with  piano chords of doom.

When Scions Attack: Third Generation Nixons & Carters Return to Haunt America

Meet Your New Overlords! http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/5630/pc13zu7.jpg

Hopes for a dynasty-free nation soared with the sputtering end of George W. Bush’s administration and the announced retirement  of the Kennedy’s last office holder.

Over The Shoulder, Out Of Reach

But new threats emerge.

Jimmy Carter’s Grandson has been elected to the Georgia State Senate, and Richard Nixon’s Grandson aspires to do in a Long Island Democratic Congressman if the Republican nomination can be secured.

The drums have grown silent on George P. “little brown one” Bush’s inevitable rise to greatness, but all this can’t but help build the tired stench.

What’s Under The Tree For You & For Me? bush-family-christmas-card-60s.JPG