Take Nancy Reagan, Please!   
“The Divine Gift of Motherhood” desperately tries to process the Palin Clothes Express into the simple country girl narrative, and somehow comes up with the haunting parallel of…..Nancy Reagan!
Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller’s calls Palin a misunderstood Everygal in need of a beauty boost:
“Most of us need a little help to look absolutely fabulous. You can almost see yourself being put into her position, becoming a surprise vice-presidential nominee, with a newborn baby and nothing appropriate to wear. You know your looks are going to be scrutinized from head to toe and all around. Considering that the entire budget spent on her behalf actually could have been spent on one outfit, by some of the rich elite, I think she was her frugal self.”
Indeed.
Further point-missing erupts when Gerold-Miller takes comfort from history, in this case the sunny version of herself Nancy Reagan presented last year in a White House fashion retrospective at the Reagan Library.
“What comes to mind most easily is a similar controversy over the pricey, high fashion clothing worn by the elegant Nancy Reagan. Most of the clothes were borrowed, and some were donated by the designers. Many of the pieces were in turn donated by Nancy, as is the intent of Palin.”
Nancy Reagan took dresses as gifts, didn’t report them, promised to reform when she got caught, and kept doing the same thing throughout Reagan’s administration.
Androids! 
….And choose to present herself as a great philanthropist by retroactively donating some of her ill-gotten gains.
The show closes next week, although Betsey seems to think it opens then.
Sad In Springfield  
Another Presidential Library head has been arrested for thievery, and now fired.
If convicted, the Abraham Lincoln Library’s Richard E. Beard may join former Theodore Roosevelt Association director Edward Renehan in prison.
What might Beard go up the river for? Shoplifting DVDs of House and Seinfeld .
A Theft About Nothing?  
Presidential Libraries seem to attract their own criminal class, so lets get busy.
Another bust and we have a trend!
“I can remember Richard Nixon, you know, his years of service, what he’s done, and everybody were ridiculing him and he ended up being the greatest president in the history of our century.”
The Anchorage Daily News rounds up local Alaska pols for reaction to Senator Ted Stevens’ conviction, and fellow investigatee Representative Don Young did not disappoint.
Bush Goes To The Dogs   
Slate has turned the release of “W” into a reunion of many of the media greats who covered Bush, teeing off on various sub-topics inspired by the film, the President, or whatever the media-ists to have to promote.
Hubris co-author Michael Isikoff takes up the question of when Bush decided to invade Iraq, saying the war was in motion by May 1, 2002.
On that day Isikoff places Bush on the South Lawn, whacking tennis balls to his dogs and yelling at Press Secretary Ari Fleischer about Saddam Hussein:
“Did you tell her I’m going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast?”
Bush gave an interview on Ronald Reagan the same day, and Isikoff thinks the President’s memo scribbles are indicative of his mind-frame.
“Optimism and strength,” Bush scrawled at the top of the memo. Also, “decisive” and “faith.” Next to a question about Reagan’s direct, blunt style, Bush wrote “moral clarity.” He drew an arrow next to the word forceful. Alongside a question about the 1983 suicide-bombing attack on the U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon (which killed 241 U.S. troops), Bush wrote, “There will be casualties.”
The Voice From Beyond 
America’s most prolific dead presidential offspring/author has struck again. Margaret Truman, Harry’s daughter, has checked in again with yet another Washington “mystery.” Murder Inside The Beltway is perhaps the most insipidly titled of her, shall we say uninspired crap novels.
Miss Truman “authored” a string of ’em before her January death. She’s entombed with her parents and husband at the Truman Library.
