Founder-ing
14-Jan-10
First In War, First In Peace, & Not On The Tip Of Sarah Palin’s TongueÂ
  The Secret Word Is “Washington”  
A Ronald Reagan Christmas Memory
25-Dec-09
Very Red, But Not That Way 
US News & World Report [not yet owned by a sinister religious cult] reports breaking news from 1984.
Extracted from Craig Shirley’s new Ronald Reagan homage, a tale of bawdy fun in the twilight struggle against Communism.
Such was the depth of Ronald Reagan’s Anti-Communist passion we are told, that, after being safely re-elected, Reagan felt secure enough in office to change the Soviet Union’s diplomatic licence plates to begin with “FC.”
Standing for “Fucking Commies.”
We are to believe that cuddly old Ronald Reagan, a man who wouldn’t spell out the word “hell” in his diary, got off a good one against the dirty Reds.
Perhaps more plausible is the version attributing these hi-jinks to America’s now surfing-ist congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, shown here with mue, mue
 authentico “Nw Reagan†Mitt Romney. 
 Rohrabacher was a Reagan speechwriter in days of yore.
Such is the state of presidential anecdotage that stories already endlessly retold live again as colorful tales of a bygone era, in this case more of the bottomless pit of Reagan-Or-Those-Around-Him-Which-Is-Close-Enough really couldn’t stand the Stalinists.
As if we doubted.
Jersey Ploys!
17-Dec-09
Lights Out, Nobody Home 
 America was awash with InfectiousOptimism®, as an avuncular Ronald Reagan rolled towards 1984’s crushing of Walter Mondale. Reagan was campaigning in Hammonton New Jersey, when he felt a song coming on…
“America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts…It rests in a message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen.“
 Bored In The USA 
It was the start of a classic GOP trope*, rope in the youngsters by referencing that rock music. It was also the beginning of musicians asking the Republicans to please stop.
Reagan labored under the misconception that Springsteen shared his cornball vision, and even better, cultural seer and future enemy of denim-clad youth George Will was the fount of this error.
 Hammonton was apparently so thrilled with Reagan’s visit the town ignored the event’s fallout, and plunked down a monument to the legendary day.
The years have not been kind to the stone.
 A recent visitor writes:
*Attempted again in the 2008 campaign, and for Springsteen, twenty-five years on some of the faithful continue tirelessly beating the same horse.
                               
A monument to Confederate denial is rising again in Biloxi Mississippi, with 90% of the cost paid by federal and state taxpayers.
Cracker bitter-enders have rebuilt Beauvoir, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s home destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and are now working on the accompanying “presidential library,” completely destroyed by the storm. 
Things To Come: Enough Pillars? 
The complex is run by the Mississippi branch of the Sons of Confederate War Veterans. The Sons are a coven of cranks determined to put across their claim that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, which has taken them into the nether worlds of Lost Cause-ist racists, Black Confederate fetishists, and “heritage” activists who enjoy presenting creepy readings of history with much winking and nudging
“We note with interest the revelation that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has slave owners in his ancestry. This news demonstrates an interesting irony with respect to contemporary multi-cultural American politics...For candidate Obama, the news is perhaps more complex since his African roots may link him to African tribes that traded their brothers and sisters into slavery.“
 Obtuse Apologists 