Remembering history the way they wished it had been
Brand Integrity Maintained!
A Florida Democratic effort to mobilize Ronald Reagan against budget cuts for a state Alzheimer’s facility has died in the state house.
This new feint in the Legacy Wars was defeated by Republican legislators.
Ronald Reagan speaks to the youth!
The Annenberg Foundation is giving the Reagan Library $10 million to teach the kids about “the importance of civility and responsibility in the government arena.”
“Students will learn the importance of participating in the democratic process and working together – as Ronald Reagan did with government leaders of all political parties – for the common good. “
Let’s look back on that halcyon era!
All parties certainly worked together to sink the Savings & Loan industry, with Reagan leading the band.
Less so in Iran-Contra, when Reagan defied Congress’s Boland amendment banning US funds being used to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. The young people may not recall that Reagan paid for this evasion by selling arms to the Beasts of Tehran.
And the giving doesn’t stop! The Annenberg is throwing another $10 million at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Who are these guys?
Walter Annenberg established the foundation with his publishing millions, washing clean his mob roots. 
The “Walter and Leonore Annenberg Presidential Learning Center” joins other Reagan Library naming opportunities with shall we say troubled origins.
Joe Allbritton serves on the Library board, the Library’s”Allbritton Hall” is named for him, and he paid for Reagan’s White House portrait. 
His Washington DC Riggs Bank melted down after revelations it held secret accounts for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the kleptocratic ruling family of Equatorial Guinea.
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The Reagan Library, where the funds of former gangsters and the funds of former dictators sit down at the table of brotherhood.
What’s in your wallet?
The dream of a Teddy Roosevelt Museum on an Oyster Bay Long Island flood plain is one step closer to reality.
The Town Council has signed on to the project, a million dollars in pledges have been, um, pledged, and all that remains is designing an actual building and raising the $99 million more needed to complete the vision. [That’s more than Bush Senior’s Library cost, less than Clinton’s, but only a fifth of the projected George W. Bush Presidential Library!]
The Oyster Bay Enterprise-Pilot rounded up a variety of local opinion, with more skeptics than fans. Naysayers focus on traffic, parking, flooding, traffic, some more traffic, and who pays. And the environmental impact of saluting the Great Conservationist.
“If it gets the visitors they claim there will be too many toilet flushes.”
– Centre Island Mayor Jack Williams
The Mayor of Oyster Bay Cove, another nearby town, lays it out:
“I don’t understand why it’s needed and – who is going to support it? Sagamore Hill [nearby TR home] is not open every day for lack of financing so I don’t understand about the deal. “
The museum planers remain enthused The Northender wrote that the Roosevelt Association Director sold Oysterians hard:
“Mr. Bruns said that the presidential museums dedicated to other presidents are in the places they considered their hometowns. ”
Not lately. Atlanta? College Station? Simi Valley? They all exist at vaguely plausible locations near the merger of real estate and cash.
Bruns also did some Big Stickin’ touting the “threat” that the Teddyists will take their ball to Boston or Washington:
“We plan to take the reasonable time to talk with the community, to present to the community what we’re proposing. But if this becomes one of those things that is just a protracted issue, I think then it would be more appropriate for us to think about another site.”
Quite a recovery for the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Earlier this year Newsday reported [original no longer on line] that “the previous choice for president declined the job at the last minute and some historians have said the group lacks a purpose and should dissolve.” Roosevelt [and quirky Reagan] biographer was among those opposing going big with a museum.
The Association needs work in other areas. It’s web site’s “Breaking News” section urgently enthuses about a looming television broadcast. In 2003.
Bill Clinton says it’s not him, it’s them.
Or rather, he said it last week, but breathless purveyer of Clinton document stories The New York Sun just got around to it.
The paper does have some useful information countering the notion Hillary Clinton sits atop a pile of documents blocking historians with her steely glare. In response to Judicial Watch’s complaints about alleged delays, the Clinton Library point to who they see as the real culprit. The Library claims that White House review after Clinton signs off on document releases takes an average 8 months.
This is a delay created by President Bush in a court-challenged Executive Order.
The Truman Library is going the final mile. Fully gussied up with an obligatory Oval Office reproduction,
they are now going to try to milk visitor thrills from Truman’s post-presidency Library office.
The tour stops here!
