A belated salute to the Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott, who July 4th shared with readers his meditations on America and the world’s obsession with replicating homes of the great and the good, or at least George Washington. Â
Mount Vernon, soon to host another superfluous “Presidential Library,” holds first place in the nation’s architectural imagination, or lack thereof. Kennicott spotlights the many sad recreations of the Big House, and Lydia Mattice Brandt’s research into America’s mysterious practice of making foreigners and school children troop through replicas at half a dozen World’s Fairs and exhibitions.
We Might Be Giants   Â
Current star practitioner of this architectural ghost walking is Alan Greenberg, whose accomplishments include a toy house Mount Vernon for future Chief Executives with excess family cash, and a “flagship” store for the always strenuously patriotic Tommy Hilfiger.
Ronald Reagan exhibited some of these morbid symptoms, enjoying work at a replica of George Washington’s desk before he was president even of the Screen Actors Guild.
 The Nixon Foundation kicks off the mad Fathers Day rush with the “perfect” gift for the rage bear you love: Dick “Dick” Morris’s “Take Back America.” Hours from now Morris himself takes the stage at the Nixon Library, and as of yesterday tickets were still available!
Its a return engagement with History for Morris, who makes the Nixon a regular stop on his book flogging excursions. The cousin of former Nancy Reagan walker Roy Cohn is currently pushing one of three titles he’s managed to get out of the still somewhat fresh Obama administration, seamlessly moving to a new host from his Clinton period as a “bird that lives by eating ticks off the rhino’s back.”
National Treasure [& long time PresidentsRUs favorite] Al Kamen fills a Friday Washington Post column with updates on the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s exciting “Freedom Registry.”
As faithful readers are aware, the Registry lists donors to the Bush Library project, starting at the low low price of just $50.
Now Kamen reports it will not merly list of names on a wall, or inscribe them on a brick, but will entail the hallmark of late 20th century technology: interactivity!
Bush donors are getting off easy. The bandit princes of the Young America’s Foundation are soaking the rubes for a thousand dollars, in return for which their name is inscribed on the “Freedom Wall” tucked away out of sight on the Reagan ranch property. Why these believers in Reagan’s Berlin Wall shattering Mighty Voice would build a wall is unclear.
      Kentucky proudly hosts a fake Abraham Lincoln boyhood cabin, now replicated on coins.
