Hey there! JFK__1960 is using Twitter.

Remember when Facebook got tiresome, when all your cranky aunts and uncles opened their own accounts to spy on your younger cousins?

Brace yourselves.     Twitter now brings all the magic and excitement of “This Day In History” to the Kennedy saga, in the bite-sized form Twitterati so prize.

The Kennedy Library this year will dutifully pump out daily updates of fifty years ago, when a youthful John F. Kennedy challenged everyone’s favorite villain Richard Nixon for the ultimate prize.

 Admires So Much Of Both In Self

                                                            

 Doomed* Massachusetts Republican Senate Candidate Scott Brown has gone all Dan Quayle in his first ad leading up to the late January special election.

Scratchy black and white film of John F. Kennedy touting a tax cut morphs into our Scott, somehow color-free but also eager to splash some money out of the till.

Brown clearly sees himself on the path of glory.

 But timing is key.

“They’re powerful, rich, handsome people and they’re dead. And they can’t make a difference, while I still can.’’

— Republican Senate  candidate SCOTT BROWN, comparing himself to John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana 

 Old Acquaintance, Be Forgot! 

Brown took offense recently when his opponent mentioned Reagan’s well known propensity to pose with beverage alcohol.  Ronald Reagan has now become such a seamless garment of myth that Republican candidates can get all huffy when elements of the myth-building are recalled by their opponents.

Democrat Martha Coakley worked in the reference during a debate, saying “While everybody thought he was fun to have a beer with . . . I think that he did a great disservice to this country.’’

Brown pronounced himself disappointed at such disparagement.

“He brought great pride to our country at a time when we needed it and helped to bring down the Soviet Union, Iron Curtain. Just to [say] go out and have a beer with him, that’s, I think, inappropriate.’’

Student of History Scottie needs a refresher course in the importance of beer in crafting Reagan’s everyman facade.    His staff staged serial stein hoistings, crucial anecdote generation to putting across his less than populist measures.

The beery myth making reaches its apotheosis at the Reagan Library of course, where they hauled in parts of an Irish pub Reagan visited and dressed up the food court with them. 

Reagan did do one concrete thing for beer.

   He signed federal legislation forcing the states to raise the drinking age to 21, launching a generation of youth binge drinking.

*But then they saw his truck

Bold New Platform       

George W. Bush has announced exciting new plans for his Presidential Library, spraying the horizon with many, many numbered lists of intentions, notions and fanciful ideas.

Just what will his legacy be all about?

The Bush Library will continue Bush’s on-going worldwide effort to devalue words by grasping them tightly to himself:

Join The Freedom Registry for only $50!

In the spirit of the age, the Bush Library hopes to mobilize the sinister power of social networks through its Member Advocates. But if the roaring success of the Bush administration alumni blog is an indicator, Face-book will remain fairly Bush-free.

The Bush Library web site is doing its part to erase the Kennedy assassination stain from local consciousness, offering a map of “Dallas Landmarks” with Dealey Plaza unmarked.

Not From Around Here?

We’ll be seeing a lot more of Bush’s attempts to tie himself to great “dissidents,” hiring a guy from Columbia whose “One Million Voices Against FARC” Face-book page harnesses the power of the web against the plucky jungle fighters by presenting seven [7] photos, one of Cheney and two of them of Bush.

Something called ” The Freedom Collection of the Bush Institute’s Oral History Project” looms, in which “the Institute will bring together dissidents who are participating in the Freedom House oral history project. They will share their experiences and promote best practices.”

Not to be confused with the just announced “George W. Bush Oral History Project,” by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

 Friendly Ghosts

What sort of probing questions might the Miller-narrians ask?

Lets take a loving look back at the Reagan Administration, the Millerists’ hard hitting interview with Caspar Weinberger.

What did they chat about?

The interviewer glides lightly over Iran-Contra, and asks Weinberger no questions about hiding documents in the Library of Congress, lying about it to the Special Prosecuter, his indictment, or his pardon by George H.W.Bush on eve of trial.

“Weinberger’s notes proved to be an invaluable contemporaneous record of the views and activities of the highest officials regarding those sales. They revealed, among other things, that contrary to his sworn testimony, Weinberger knew in advance that U.S. arms were to be shipped to Israel in November 1985 without Congressional notification, in an effort to obtain the release of U.S. hostages, and that Israel expected the United States to replenish the weapons Israel shipped to Iran. Weinberger’s notes also disclosed that, contrary to his sworn testimony, he knew that Saudi Arabia was secretly providing $25 million in assistance to the contras during a ban on U.S. aid.“

Lame or not, the Miller Center best get going,  given some Bush administration figures shall we say slippery memories.

You’ll Always Remember When You First Heard

Anniversaries not divisible by five never get the respect of their more numerically endowed brethren, but this year’s Kennedy assassination anniversary has had some high-points.

Chronicle Of A Death Foretold  

Your USAToday published a “where-did-it-end-up?” roundup of assassination related objects – planes, cars and oddities.  The items are dispersed to a sprawling collection of government and for-profit museums and collections, the private sector equivalent of the presidential library system – intrepid local hustlers, cranks and visionaries, following their dreams.

From Baylor University’s  Ruby’s slipper to Historic Auto Attractions‘ really creepy artifacts and diorama collection, the stuff is everywhere.

Baylor lost out to SMU on the George W. Bush Library, but they can keep their head up in Kennedy conspiracy theory archives.

Auto Attractions provides an alternative past of a sort – what if Jack Ruby had shot Steve Buscemi rather than Oswald?

        Grave Importance   

Fancy color sketches and models of the George W. Bush Presidential Library have been loosed upon an anxious world, and must be mined for clues.

Like, where will they bury him?

Assuming Bush follows the pharaoh-ic path of FDR, Truman, Ike, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and his father’s plan at College Station, he’ll have to be buried on site. If the “Texas Rose Garden” above is a little too outdoorsy, there is the Freedom Tractor Beam inside.

 

The careful viewer will note a presidential quote on the wall behind the generic assembled white folks.

It’s a line from Bush’s 2004 Republican Convention acceptance speech, in which he claimed we are summoned by a “calling from beyond the stars.“  Here on Earth Bush had begun the year attempting a call to greatness with a vague drumbeat for Mars exploration, then buried the exciting initiative by the time of his State of The Union address.

The convention speech itself was delivered with a spaceport motif. 

The Library grounds are touted as a Bush gift to the nation, or at least SMU, providing “numerous spaces for events and gatherings,” but don’t plan your protest rally just yet.

“… unlike the formal, tree-lined landscape of the main campus, this garden contains hills and draws and winding paths that conceal surveillance cameras and other security equipment.“