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The Berlin Wall has been down 18 years today, but America never tires of the old concrete chunks left over. Pieces grace all your finer Presidential Libraries, no matter how strained their relationship is to the Wall.

And we usually display them West side out with all the pretty graffiti.

Roosevelt: only link is this hideous sculpture made by a Churchill Granddaughter from Wall.

Truman: see where she got the semi-human shapes above? Still more Churchill relative art at Westminster College where Truman invited Churchill to let rip.

Eisenhower: none – Wall but a gleam in Walter Ulbrecht’s eye then.

Kennedy: because it was built on his watch?

Johnson: sadly, no.

Nixon: because it existed simultaneously with his Presidency?

Ford: same as above, and US established diplomatic relations with DDR.

Carter: none.

Reagan: leapt into the future and tore down his own-self.

Plus one inside:

Plus at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC:

Plus one at the “Reagan Ranch” [downhill from it in Santa Barbara]:

Bush: fell while in office.

Another, indoors:

Other Americans have different ways of displaying the Wall:

Digging deep

Chris Wallace is shaking things up at Fox News Sunday, launching a cutting edge new interview series called “American Leaders.”

Let Chris explain:

“we want to expand the conversation on Sunday talk shows to reach beyond the Beltway and hear from some of the most compelling voices in business, culture and religion.”

But they could get George Bush [41].

Reaching all the way to College Station, Texas, where the senior President Bush is flogging the triumphant reopening of his Presidential Library.

A sampling of the Wallace fact seeking juggernaut in action:

“Where do you and your family — where did you get this commitment to public service?”

“And as grandpa or poppy — what are you?“

“Volunteerism has had quite some staying power in the last 20 years, hasn’t it?“

Great to see the hard hitting style he showed in his Nancy Reagan take-down hasn’t dulled.

Howdy!

The Washington Post “Fact Checker” weighs in on the Clinton’s papers, and comes up with a simple pointless solution that will never see the light of day.

She says she’s for disclosure, he blamed the Bush White House, the Archives says President Clinton’s representatives have a blanket list of topics they don’t want out till they see the papers first. A Bush Executive Order gave this power to ex president’s and their children after them just as Reagan era papers were about to surface. With the sitting president getting yet another whack at preventing disclosure afterwards.

The Post says Clinton should let it all hang out:

‘There is, however, nothing in Executive Order 13233 that obliges a former president, or his representative, to go through the records one by one. If former President Clinton is so opposed to the Bush administration order, he could simply instruct Lindsey to approve the documents wholesale.”

Brilliant. Perhaps the Clinton’s have wandered into a trap Bush devised, perhaps their intentions are impure. But as is often said in political money arguments, why should they unilaterally disarm? We’ve decades to go before we’ll see the Reagan and Bush 1 documents in full.

Absent a real law not twisted into it’s reverse by crackpot Executive Orders our knowledge of past administrations will be based more on contemporary leaks and fatuous memoirs.

Man and mementos

The Associated Press presents Barry Landau as international man of mystery, dancing with queens and first ladies when he isn’t precociously worming his way into an Eisenhower White House invitation. Since then they claim he has been operating at the nexus, working the fulcrum, and in and of himself representative of the convergence of all we hold dear in politics and entertainment.

And snagging a lot of tchotskis over the years. Some of his collection will be reflected in “The President’s Table: 200 Years of Dining and Diplomacy,” first of a threatened three volumes of Presidentish stuff.

“He’s the kind of guy you may not notice in the pictures with celebrities. He is 59 and has been in the company of presidents for nearly 50 years. He is tall and bearded, with a home full of history and a head crammed with names, like boxes in an overstuffed closet ready to tumble out.”

One name that doesn’t tumble out in AP’s account is Hamilton Jordan.

Landau was supporting witness to allegations that Jimmy Carter Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan used cocaine during a visit to Studio 54, the New York nightclub which from almost any perspective symbolized everything wrong with America in the 70s.

Drugs were the least of their problems

Club owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager faced prison for tax evasion, and offered up Jordan’s name as plea bargain bait. Their attorney was sinister New York fixer Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy’s former counsel.

Cohn, clubbing.

The Special Counsel* appointed to investigate the allegations rejected them, and found Landau to be, shall we say, a questionable witness:

“There were only three people who claimed to have direct information concerning Mr. Jordan’s alleged use of cocaine in Studio 54: Rubell, Johnny C., and one Barry Landau. As witnesses, the most charitable thing that could be said about them was that they were utterly unbelievable….Landau claimed that on the evening of June 27, 1978, while at Studio 54, Mr. Jordan asked him for cocaine. Despite what he had said on the 20/20 program, however, when we pressed him, he did not claim to have any knowledge that Mr. Jordan in fact took cocaine that night. Landau said he did not hear Mr. Jordan ask Rubell or anyone else for cocaine, did not hear any other discussions about cocaine, and did not see Mr. Jordan or any other member of the Jordan group take cocaine. He also said that prior to August 24, 1979, he was never told by Rubell or anyone else that Mr. Jordan had taken cocaine in his visit. Landau declined to be interviewed by the FBI about June 27, 1978.20…Although Landau said that other persons were with Mr. Jordan that evening when Mr. Jordan asked Landau for cocaine, each of those persons explicitly denied that Mr. Jordan asked anyone for cocaine in his presence. I had very serious doubts about Landau’s credibility under any circumstances.”

None of this stops Landau on the book tour. He’s planning to hit the Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Bush Presidential Libraries, and for some reason doing both the Ford Archive and Ford Museum on separate days.

Somehow he is skipping the Carter Library.

*Youngsters may not recall, but one part of the hell that was the 70s was the appointment of Special Counsels at the hint of White House impropriety.

Presentation is key

Excitement builds around the Bush Library reopening after renovation, and KBTX [“Your exclusive home for coverage of the remodeling“] has caught the fever. They are retailing the Bush Library’s claims of exclusive seating in it’s new Oval Office recreation:

“The Bush Museum will also present the only Oval Office exhibit that allows visitors to sit in the “seat of power” and have their photo taken behind the President’s desk. “

But the private sector has already answered this need.

You can have your picture taken sitting in a fake oval office and sign a fake Executive Order at the American Presidents Museum, nestled amidst the full family fun of Branson Missouri. Just try to ignore the presidential seal the size of a snow tire.

The “Show Me State” es muy, muy authentico!