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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THE FACTS: The estate tax,which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president.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.“

 

…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

Better Read   

The Thousand Oaks Acorn visits the Reagan Library, dipped in history.

From tiny acorns some mighty old chestnuts swell, as the Reagan Presidential Library finds a willing conduit for its Berlin Wall fantasies.

The Library is going all out to forever tie the Wall’s collapse to Reagan’s utterances, with the keen insights of  “exhibit specialist” Rob Zucca showing Acorn the way.

Apparently, the Wall was a commie trap! 

“They [The Reds] always said it was a security wall to keep the west out. Well, it was to keep their people in.”

“The Library’s claim is the chipping away—and eventual removal—of the barricade paved the way for the reunification of Germany and the advent of freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe.”

– neatly reversing the actual sequence of events, in which the Wall was more the last act of East Germany’s internal collapse, which was itself one of the last Stalinist regimes to go.

Reagan Library director of communications Melissa Giller riffs on Reagan quotes of the 60s, 70s, and today, plugging in “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction” along with the inevitable Thatcher reference.

“It was his lifelong mission to bring the end of communism and he was able to do it, as Margaret Thatcher said, ‘without ever firing a shot’”

But as we now know, Mags opposed German unification, plotting with wiley Frenchman Francois Mitterrand to block it.

But  Giller cannot be restrained:

“…even today, there are places such as Iraq and Afghanistan where American soldiers are fighting for freedom and democracy.“They may not have a physical Berlin Wall,” she said, “but walls still exist.”

Indeed. 

  Eternal Flame   

The pop-necrophiliac juggernaut that is Michael Jackson has opened a London exhibit of career castoffs and oddities, somehow coinciding with the release of what we can only hope is his last final concert film.

Along with the usual costumes and chotskies is a treasured Ronald Reagan letter to Jackson, wishing him speedy recovery from burns sustained in an

   ill-starred Pepsi commercial.

Reagan’s infectious optimism failed to take hold in this instance.    Jackson’s fire injuries are blamed by some for his subsequent pain killer abuse.

Much as we might dream of these oddities on permanent display in a real museum someday, the cruel fact is this is only a tease for the inevitable  memorabilia auction. 

 

 

A Killer Tree, A Pony And A Welfare Queen Walk Into A Bar…
 

The delightfully named David Rambo taking his skills learned producing “CSI” to the crime scene that was the Ronald Reagan presidency.The packagers of  Harry Truman and Teddy Roosevet’s pissy endearment for the one man stage have turned their attentions to the beloved former president.

Reagan will supply the one-liners musty even in their day, and Rambo is to bring the sparkle.

Sadly, this meant the departure from the project of Hollywood right wing icon Lionel Chetwynd, who from the rather rough clay of George W. Bush’s 9-11     response fashioned a heroic narrative.