From his controversial campaign embrace of Reagan nostalgia onward, Barack Obama has set Fantasy Reagan as the standard to be measured against. But he’s lacked the twinkling whimsy to pull off the big whoppers Reagan could do with half a brain, and the shamelessness of his handlers in putting them across.
But now, light from the East.
Obama was already three up on the Gipper in the coveted killing Qaddafi relatives category, hitting a son and three grandchildren. Reagan had to make to do with his sole Qaddafi hit, the adopted daughter killed when the US bombed Libya in 1986.
Now the rebel conquest of Tripoli threatens even that Reagan accomplishment. The Irish Times reports from the wreckage that Hana Qaddafi may have never died, and had gone on to a career as a doctor.
The Reagan bomb run was storied in legend and song, featuring daring-do, plucky Maggie Thatcher as Churchill in drag, and the perfidious French.
But now all we may have gotten out of it was the Lockerbie bombing.
Any Number Can Play!Eager Republican National Committee beavers want you to send birthday greetings to the ghost of Ronald Reagan, and appear to be shunting them onto the Twitter without editing.Pranksters have already had at it, and you can join the conversation here.How do you remember Ronald Reagan?
Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.
Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!
McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:
Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective. Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height. The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.
McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with piano chords of doom.
The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs: free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.
Christie On A Stick!
They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.
