Remembering history the way they wished it had been
ABC News reports that the Clinton Library has brokered parts of it’s donor list, folding this into the usual complaints about secrecy with the usual boiler plate paragraph saying disclosure isn’t legally required. Left out, as so many times before, is the history of presidential libraries and papers which brought us to this point.
The faux naivete of finding novelty in organizations cashing in on their donor base is kind of spectacular.
Can we blame Richard Nixon for Pakistani Strongman Pervez Musharraf’s weekend coup?
Agence France-Presse reports his passion for Nixon. The General’s own web site asks”What book have you read recently and really enjoyed?” His answer: “‘Leaders’ by Richard Nixon.” Musharaff made sure to tell a 2005 interviewer that he had thanked Henry Kissinger that year in New York for his and Nixon’s “very good role” in 1971. That was when the Pakistani Army massacred as many as 3 million people in East Bengal with the silence and covert aid of the Nixon Administration.
Musharaff also shares his role model’s penchant for mysterious real estate holdings.
We’ll see how the State of Siege goes for our man in Pakistan. He’s kept his calendar clear for November.
Make It So!
Ominous rumblings from West Africa.
A candidate for Presidet of Ghana has pledged to build a Presidential Library for Kwame Nkrumah, the nation’s first President.
Never-mind he already has a mausoleum 
built on the spot he declared Ghana’s independence 50 years ago, and an attached museum. 
The pledge of course came during a campaign swing through Nkrumah’s home region.
Nkrumah was a major big deal in his day. He was leader of the first post-colonial independent African nation and a promoter of Pan Africanism, but that didn’t work out.
The existing mausoleum/museum complex may reflect the difficulties of man and movement. The designers struggled to reconcile Nkruman’s professed admiration for both Ghandi and Lenin, apparently by having the supersized statue in front dressed modestly. 
The parallels are haunting, if Richard Nixon had been living under house arrest at his Presidential Library/Hacienda until word of the pardon came. And if Gerald Ford had needed more military backing than Alexander Hague to take power.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo pardoned Joseph Estrada, who’s Vice President she had been. Estrada is sort of the Ronald Reagan of the Philippines,
only more Charles Bronsonish. 
And if Reagan had been running spies in the White House in retirement.
He’s been living rough at his “ranch” 
building a Presidential Library,which Estrada says is
It has the usual: a recreation of his office, grave to be, snapshots with Clinton and Mandela.
Estrada says it all comes back to Ronald Reagan:
“If a Hollywood grade-B actor can become a US President, a grade-A Filipino actor like me can do it better.”
It was like old times for Representative Duncan Hunter at the Orlando Republican Presidential debate.
Specifically 1961. 
While most of the GOP candidates are content to bask in the warm glow of Ronald Reagan single-handedly toppling the Berlin Wall, Hunter has other roll back campaigns in mind. He’s going after Fidel! 
Or at least making the claim that Kennedy sold out the Bay of Pigs []Playa Giron] invasion, launching the lily-livered “Democrat” party of today.
A bold statement considering who held office 
when Castro came to power, and which administration cooked up the invasion. [The hearty endorsement of our death-squad allies in El Salvador is also refreshing]
“This is a historic venue.(APPLAUSE)
HUNTER: And you know something? Today, they are fighting side by side with our guys in Iraq.
