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Laying It On With A Trowel 

Our glorious tradition of Presidential Libraries was of course launched by Franklin Roosevelt, who famously parked the first  one in his yard, and had himself buried there to complete the pharaoh-fication.

 

The special localness of these little bits o’ greatness scattered over the landscape are celebrated by America’s leading purveyor of thoughtful presidential historian mush, David  McCullough:

” it is valuable for anyone trying to understand the life of a particular president should come to the place that produced that human being, where his memory is part of the story of that place.“

Stirring words, except Reagan’s location is an accident of real estate after Stanford, where he had no ties, turned him down. Nixon crawled back to Yorba Linda after numerous rejections elsewhere, and Bush Sr is in College Station for ideological congruity, not any local ties.

The great tradition is coming to its logical end at the FDR Library, where the seventy-five year old structure’s roof leaks, the wiring is shot, and damp threatens the Roosevelt papers. A $17 million fix is requested.

Just why this collection of randomly sited mini-archives must be maintained and expanded into perpetuity even as they are pilfered from within is unclear.

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot…

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.

Oh, To Be In Beirut! 

The New York Times recently turned over a substantial chunk of it’s op/ed page to exploring the murky Reagan administration intervention in Beirut, where hundreds of Marines died.

The lesson learned?   It was terrorism, and the giant who tumbled the Berlin Wall with a single breath  turned and ran.

But some hold fast to the mythical decisiveness they associate with Ronald Reagan.

  The preferred Marines in Lebanon image is “peacekeepers,” perhaps because pulling-Isreael’s-chestnuts-out-of-the-fire-then-sitting-at-the-airport-until-people-we-were-attacking-blew-us-up-ists don’t roll off the tongue.

Randy Gaddo was there, and does the Shiite Sunni shape shift seamlessly:

“Had we stood our ground 25 years ago instead of pulling out after the bombing, it is possible that 9/11 would not have happened. Likewise, anyone who thinks we can pull back into a shell now and hope terrorism will go away simply isn’t looking at the lessons history offers.”

The apparent lesson being that shelling Muslims is its own reward. 

Joining the Age of Reagan nostalgia is former Reagan National Security Advisor Robert “Bud” McFarlane.

McFarlane portrays himself as quite the go-getter back in the day, urging the President before the bombing to send the Marines into the hills above Beirut to get a jump start on Middle East quagmiring. Left unsaid is McFarlane’s starring role in the Iran/Contra affair, his travel to Tehran with a bible and a cake to deal arms to the Ayatollahs,  the profits going to our off the books war on Nicaragua.

He presents a spectacularly passive Ronald Reagan. The man who wasn’t there got into the loop on invading Grenada after McFarlane, who himself was briefed on the scheme by Vice President George H.W.Bush. McFarlane’s Reagan let the Marines sit at the Beirut airport until blown up, and then let Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger prevent massive retaliation.

McFarlane plead guilty to charges growing out of Iran Contra, Weinberger lied about it and hid his notes on the crime. President George H.W. Bush was to be a Weinberger trial witness, but both were providentially pardoned by Bush on his way out of office,  Christmas Eve 1992.

McFarlane joins the chorus lumping the Sha we were then fighting in Lebanon with the Sunni we were then arming against the Reds inAfghanistan, and extracts the lesson that we missed the early bus to the Clash of Civilizations:

“missing an early opportunity to counter the Islamist terrorist threat in its infancy”

So unlike Grenada, where our bold invasion of an island with the population of Trenton  showed, um, something.

Bud McFarlane, innocent at home:

“Just after midnight on Friday, Oct. 21, I was awakened by a call from Vice President George H. W. Bush, who reported that several East Caribbean states had asked the United States to send forces to the Caribbean island of Grenada to prevent the Soviet Union and Cuba from establishing a base there. I called the president and Secretary of State George Shultz, who were on a golfing trip in Augusta, Ga., and received approval to have our forces prepare to land within 72 hours.” 

Near, But Not N’er  

Reagan worship takes many forms, most recently in the form of miraculous interventions from beyond.  His all-knowingness takes multiple forms, most acutely when He foresees our present troubles.

Sadly, one of the most popular instances never happened.  Many have enjoyed the Reagan diary item about a visit from his Vice President’s n’er-do-well son, but it’s a long disproved fake.

But it feels so good.