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Pathway

On this special day in the Ronald Reagan universe, we pause to salute one of the lesser of the vast number of entities with Reagan’s name attached.

Hail Illinois US 14!

Holiday Heart-warmer

Here’s a touching remnant from years gone by for Ronald Reagan’s birthday – Reagan signing the bill creating the Martin Luther King holiday. It could be yours through the market moving magic of EBay.

Historical interpretations of these men grows steadily more fanciful and eccentric as we travel further from the actual events. The Chicago Tribune ran the same photo in it’s Swamp blog, with this caption –

“Given the New Hampshire comments by Sen. Hillary Clinton about it taking a president to make dreams a legislative reality, for which she was excoriated by some of Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, and Obama’s Nevada comments about Reagan being a transformational president, for which he was castigated by Sen. Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and others, this seemed like an appropriate photo to run today”

Transformational, or merely pen-equipped in this instance?

The right wing American Thinker blog has run a highly strange item featuring King and Reagan as Best Buddies of Destiny [with the Pope!]:

“Placing morality above popularity and above “efficiency” has another marvelous trait: It also places you on the moral high ground. Reagan, in this respect, resembles another man whose birthday we just celebrated: Dr. Martin Luther King… It is not coincidence that men like Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, and Pope John Paul II were men who’s great power came from a deliberate decision to ignore opinion and to ignore power and to stand instead on the hill of righteousness. “

Well. What did Reagan actually do or say about MLK? Historian Robert C. Smith has been unable to get the Reagan Library to cough up it’s papers on his decision making over the holiday. And what we know from the public record isn’t terribly flattering, with Reagan showing solidarity with the most retrograde forces in the Republican Party.

“During the Senate debate, Helms called for the opening of the FBI files on King, which he claimed would show that King was a communist or at least a communist sympathizer. When asked in an October 1983 news conference about Helms’ allegations, Reagan responded, “We will know in about 35 years, won’t we?” (referring to the time for the opening of the FBI files).”

And worse in Time:

“..the White House confirmed an exchange of letters between Reagan and former Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson of New Hampshire. Thomson said a holiday for King would honor a man “of immoral character whose frequent associations with leading agents of Communism is well established.” Reagan wrote back that “I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on image, not reality.”

Great Guys

ABC News provides the latest and greatest on the great and would be great, and how reincarnations of Your Name Here are thick on the campaign trail.

Stupid Things

After another orgy of Republican candidate debate Reaganophilia, Paul Slansky is back once more with a loving look back at Ronald Reagan’s troubled relationship with fact.

The orgy itself came to new lows.

Shamelessness crossbred with cluelessness to produce such gems as John McCain‘s “It would be good to have Nancy Reagan back in the leadership role of the ‘Just Say No’ program”

And the Nanc herself threatened, “He’s back.”

So Long, Suckers!

The State of the Union is an annual orgy of history in the making, or at least struck glancing blows. National treasure James Wolcott spun the dial to join in the fun, and his rage was stoked by the performance of Jacob Weisberg and Doris Kearns Goodwin in one post speech historama.

“I watched a large chunk of the Charlie Rose post-SOTU all-star cud-chew last night during which [Jacob] Weisberg expressed mild surprise that Bush hadn’t sounded “more conciliatory” in his final address. I was surprised that Weisberg was surprised, expressing my surprise by muttering aloud just soft enough so the cats wouldn’t hear, “Diphead, what did you expect? That he would make nice now having gotten his way through arrogance and imperious piety ever since 9/11? He makes cracking down on earmarks a show of manhood, and you think he’s going to introduce softer colors into his palette and fluffier textures as he struts out the door into History’s sunlit parlor? Have you no psychological acumen whatsoever, man?”

“…even Weisberg wasn’t nearly as annoying as fellow panelist Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has become a major irritant with her girlish enthusiasm and goody bag of presidential anecdotes that she dispenses to humanize everybody on the same glorious continuum, as if the crimes and calamities of Vietnam and Iraq were crucibles of character-building for our chief executives, the crowded backdrops to personal tragedy and greatness. (So many faraway nobodies have to die so that History can come alive.)”

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