Grace Tully: Note To Self 
New York state’s gift to the nation, Chuck Schumer has a deal for us:
We allow the corporate descendants of Franklin Roosevelt secretary Grace Tully to profit from her absconding with FDR ephemera, and they will graciously donate the material to the Roosevelt Presidential Library for a tax deduction.
The recently bankrupt Sun-Times Media Group holds papers Tully gathered working for FDR, and wants to unload them on the Library for the losses.
But that pesky National Archives says it already own some of the stuff.
However did the Chicago Sun-Times holding company come to own this trove of FDR scraps?
 Its former owner, FDR biographer and torch-bearer for Richard Nixon Conrad Black, is currently a guest of the federal government, convicted of expropriating company funds for himself.  
Black wrote his generally well received Roosevelt book before moving on to criminal genius Nixon, so the papers might stem from the Corporation doing its part for Roosevelt research.
Unexamined in the Associated Press piece and unremarked upon by the ever-flexible Chuck Schumer is the money value of the Media Group’s tax deduction.
Conrad Black: FDR Fan, Fop 
The Shadow Knows  
As a curious world awaits Sarah Palin’s looming Oprah encounter, tiny shards of her upcoming polemic are emerging.
For all her roguishness, the Governor follows a predicable political path, lying about Ronald Reagan. 
The Associated Press prepared a catalog of her detachments from reality, and her Reagan claims are true to the spirit of the man, in that she confidently proffers demonstrably falsehoods with a smile.
“Palin: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and ”showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”
THE FACTS: The estate tax,which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president.
Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October 2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.“
Chips Ahoy! Â Â 
The Wall Street Journal dips into the bottomless well of presidential pastimes to discuss poker and its role in the defense of the West. Harry Truman’s lifelong devotion to gambling is approvingly reviewed, with side discussion of Winston Churchill’s legendary alcohol consumption and failings at cards.
 Poker was played on the eve of Churchill’s storied Iron Curtain speech, allowing writer James McManus to wrap himself in ominous clouds of doom.
“The Cold War was just weeks away. The ability to read who was bluffing and who wasn’t would be more important than ever.“
 Retiring Type   
The Washington Post’s Howard Kutz is puzzled at the incessant media coverage of Barack Obama minutia, and for guidance he turns to grizzled George W. Bush handler Mark McKinnon
McKinnon is professionally awed at Obama’s mastery of image burnishing, contrasting him to Bush’s modest self effacement:
“the former president liked his privacy, was wary of the media and had an aversion ‘to anything that smacks of self-promotion.’“
Kurtz’s probing questions continue, turning to burly, bandito-mustachioed Thomas Friedman to understand why those leftest whiners seem so upset with Obama.
Puzzler 
…And We’ll Never Hear The End Of It 
French President Nicolas Sarkozy joins the line of hero’s taking credit for Communism’s demise.
From the Daily Mail via Wonkette comes news that the small but perfectly formed pol has posted a Facebook photo and copy which appears to place him amidst Freedom’s Chiselers® taking a whack at the Wall the night it fell.
Sarko is in Berlin for the anniversary festivities, so his invented heroics should make him many new friends.
Also among the Berlin throng is Ronald Reagan offspring Michael Reagan. He is there to dedicate a Reagan room at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, an event so momentous it is unmentioned on the Museum’s website.
One of Michael Reagan’s honored guests will be the German Democratic Republic’s last Prime Minister, Lothar de Maiziere. The former PM may feel a special bond with former FBI informant Ronald Reagan as de Maiziere was forced from politics by accusations he’d been a Stazi informant under the DDR.
Barack Obama is not in Berlin, and his “World Freedom Day” proclamation leaves both Reagan and Sarkozy unmentioned. Obama does coyly use the phrase “Kiev to Capetown” in describing the consequences of the Wall falling, cruelly recalling Reagan’s, shall we say, complex approach to Apartheid
