Freedom Sold Separately! 
National Treasure [& long time PresidentsRUs favorite] Al Kamen fills a Friday Washington Post column with updates on the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s exciting “Freedom Registry.”
As faithful readers are aware, the Registry lists donors to the Bush Library project, starting at the low low price of just $50.
Now Kamen reports it will not merly list of names on a wall, or inscribe them on a brick, but will entail the hallmark of late 20th century technology: interactivity!
“Using the latest technologies, this innovative registry will be housed in a specially designed kiosk and will feature an interactive listing of those chosen for this special recognition”
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 Never has self selection been more meaningful.
Fries With That? 
Bush donors are getting off easy. The bandit princes of the Young America’s Foundation are soaking the rubes for a thousand dollars, in return for which their name is inscribed on the “Freedom Wall” tucked away out of sight on the Reagan ranch property. Why these believers in Reagan’s Berlin Wall shattering Mighty Voice would build a wall is unclear.
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Decidedly Unappealing 
The Nation awaits George W. Bush’s after-report on his troubled presidency, but even in his upcoming tome’s press release we see the hallmark of the Bush Era: don’t sweat the details.
High on their own gas over Bush ”Shattering the conventions of political autobiography,” his flacks rush through the Bush Decade without regard to actual facts, “In gripping, never-before-heard detail.”
“President Bush brings readers inside the Texas Governor’s Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and behind the Oval Office desk for his historic and controversial decisions on the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues that have shaped the first decade of the 21st century.“
Perhaps not the greatest of crimes, or the tallest tale we can look forward to, but didn’t his Katrina problem start from not being behind the Oval Office desk?
Point Of Reference 
Reagan Inflation 
The echos of Tim [who?] Pawlenty’s heartfelt tribute to Ulysses S. Grant had barely faded when eager young Republican cubs sprang forth to re-seal Grant’s Tomb.
Small but perfectly formed North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry has introduced legislation to banish Grant from his perch on the $50 bill, replacing him with a fellow all the kids love, Ronald Reagan.
The circle jerk of history is proven in McHenry’s press release. Why must Grant go? He’s much less popular than Reagan, Historians Say.
Plausible, but which historians? Here we fall down an especially twisted conservative rat hole.
McHenry cites a 2005 survey of historians done for the honest brokers of the Wall Street Journal opinion operation, performed by the law prof author of “Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 7th edition” on behalf of the focus of evil in the modern judiciary, the Federalist Society.   The Journal guy involved devotes much of his accompanying article to reassuring the faithful that while George W. Bush rated only average, his big bets might still pay off!
Given the sponsors you won’t be surprised to learn that the undisclosed historians panel was corrected for the “far left tilt” of the academy, stacking equal numbers of liberal and conservative historians.
Who knows. We don’t get to see the list, but the stage dressing screams that the fix is in.
Bush Alumni Gather               
George W. Bush has shown his sensitive side to gathering of the faithful, while interested observers puzzled over an exciting new Bush mystery:
Where did they hide the papers this time?
The former President repeated claims he’ll stay above the political fray, while saying former President Carter had “made my life miserable.”
The Bush administration alumni gathered in Washington just as yet another old rock turned over. One piece of information gained from the Justice Department investigation of John Yoo’s torture memos was the exciting news that many of Yoo’s emails from the period were unavailable.
Apparently because they were deleted.
My Successor Deserves My Documents 
Washington veterans exchanged quiet smiles, minds drifting back to the Bush administration’s sprint to the exits, little heeding such niceties as complying with federal record keeping laws. Years of litigation later we learned that some 22 millions emails had gone missing, recoverable only at vast expense.
Choire Sicha spoke for the Nation, asking plaintively “How Many Years Will It Take Us To Get John Yoo’s Emails?”
Watch This Space!
Boots On The Ground, Buster! 
The delightfully forthright “Mad Jewess” blog offers further proof that foaming spittle may cloud vision.
MJ spews forth on any number of current right-wing obsessions, gives a shout-out Birther High Priestess Orly Taitz, then for some reason goes off on a photo of Barack Obama with his feet on his desk:
“Click on this PIC below, what an ARROGANT ASSHOLE:
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 I suspect what we have here is Dignity Of The Office Derangement, a condition manifest in delusional belief that whatever behavior the victim chooses to find offensive never occurred under prior presidents.
The condition’s poster child is of course Bush family lackey Andy Card, justly renowned for his launch of the Jackets-Always-In-The-Oval-Office myth.
 
