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.
 Substitutes For Victory  
The Boston Globe surveys John McCain’s version of the Vietnam War, and lordy, “Bomb, Bomb Iran” isn’t the beginning of his breezy confidence in airpower and death from above.
McCain’s father was commander of Pacific forces for much of the Vietnam war. In McCain’s version, dad was unhappy Richard Nixon wouldn’t unleash the bombing campaign against North Vietnam. His father quit quietly, and McCain feels he should have gone noisily in protest.
In Happier Times   
What didn’t Nixon unleash? Nixon escalated Lyndon Johnson’s bombing, and flirted with using atomic weapons against the North, telling old softy Henry Kissinger:
“The only place where you and I disagree … is with regard to the bombing…You’re so god-damned concerned about the civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.”
The notion the US might have won, that the military fought only a limited war, is an old false claim, and belied by the 8 million tons of bombs we dropped, and the millions we killed.
We were bombing the crap out of a peasant economy, and there wasn’t much to hit even after dumbing down target lists early on.
“When NVN was first targeted the JCS found only 8 industrial installations worth listing on a par with airfields, military supply dumps, barracks complexes, port facilities, bridges, and oil tanks. Even by the end of 1965, after the JCS had lowered the standards and more than doubled the number of important targets, the list included only 24 industrial installations, 18 of them power plants which were as important for such humble uses as lighting streets and pumping water as for operating any real factories.”
Hugh Hewitt: Leg Man?     
Indomitable or perverse: You make the call. Like his mentor Richard Nixon, former Nixon Library Executive Director Hugh Hewitt will not accept defeat.
His mash note to Mitt Romney couldn’t save the Latter Day Hope, and the next horse Hewitt chose to ride is faltering.
#1: He Lost 
The Townhall impresario’s latest attempt to serve the cause and himself has stalled, with publishers so far rejecting his proposed  How Sarah Palin Won the Election … and Saved America quickie book.
Reagan: Better Read 
Our gal chose to close last night quoting the sainted Ronald Reagan [after earlier misattributing “city on a hill” to Reagan, rather than John Winthrop, whom he quoted.]
And magnificent words they were. The empty vessel that is Sarah Palin, already caught channeling FDR assassination fans on the glories of small town life, was pumped up with yet another oddity from the Republican party’s controversiall past.
As was widely noted, Palin’s closer was lifted from Reagan’s “Operation Coffee-cup” crusade against Medicare, back when it was the opening wedge of socialism.
….The Howling Silence Here   
 Versus The Michigan Traffic Jams.
