Freedom Sold Separately!  

National Treasure [& long time PresidentsRUs favorite] Al Kamen fills a Friday Washington Post column with updates on the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s exciting “Freedom Registry.”

As faithful readers are aware, the Registry lists donors to the Bush Library project, starting at the low low price of just $50.

Now Kamen reports it will not merly list of names on a wall, or inscribe them on a brick, but will entail the hallmark of late 20th century technology: interactivity!

“Using the latest technologies, this innovative registry will be housed in a specially designed kiosk and will feature an interactive listing of those chosen for this special recognition”

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 Never has self selection been more  meaningful.

Fries With That?

 

Bush donors are getting off easy.  The bandit princes of the Young America’s Foundation are soaking the rubes for a thousand dollars, in return for which their name is inscribed on the “Freedom Wall” tucked away out of sight on the Reagan ranch property.  Why these believers in Reagan’s Berlin Wall shattering Mighty Voice would build a wall is unclear.

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 Barry Unfortunate 

AFP via TPM reports that the awesome power of social media is being mobilized by Indonesians unhappy with Jakarta’s statue commemorating Barack Obama’s childhood there.  And proud Americans are joining the fun!

An Indonesian Facebook group has 55,000 members, while their English language clones make do with  2000.

The magic of social media is that anyone may join, and do. But messages may get muddled in the churn.  The English site boasts the lovely monkey statue shown above, while some Indonesians focus on Obama and Israel.

   Apparent non-Indonesian Jack Ellis provides a two-fer, joining denunciations of the Jakarta statue while vowing not to donate to Haiti relief, lest Obama get a statue there, eventually.
Hating Boy & Man

If You Build It They Will Come 

Zoning officials have signed off on George W. Bush’s Presidential Library plunking parking lots right up against its northern neighbors, on a side of the Bush complex not shown in the lovely drawings the Library released. 

The neighbors had complained, and University Park officials made noises about forcing changes in the plans. But at a meeting with no public participation they appear to have caved entirely to SMU’s threat of slapping dorms on the property.

  The lots would be to Mrs. Bush’s right in this photo, the other side of the trees.

Apparently gone are the days when the Bush’s touted their  “truly urban location,” and the Library was to anchor a “string of urban pearls” connected by mass transit.

University Parked

Hey there! JFK__1960 is using Twitter.

Remember when Facebook got tiresome, when all your cranky aunts and uncles opened their own accounts to spy on your younger cousins?

Brace yourselves.     Twitter now brings all the magic and excitement of “This Day In History” to the Kennedy saga, in the bite-sized form Twitterati so prize.

The Kennedy Library this year will dutifully pump out daily updates of fifty years ago, when a youthful John F. Kennedy challenged everyone’s favorite villain Richard Nixon for the ultimate prize.

 Admires So Much Of Both In Self

 Doomed* Massachusetts Republican Senate Candidate Scott Brown has gone all Dan Quayle in his first ad leading up to the late January special election.

Scratchy black and white film of John F. Kennedy touting a tax cut morphs into our Scott, somehow color-free but also eager to splash some money out of the till.

Brown clearly sees himself on the path of glory.

 But timing is key.

“They’re powerful, rich, handsome people and they’re dead. And they can’t make a difference, while I still can.’’

– Republican Senate  candidate SCOTT BROWN, comparing himself to John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana 

 Old Acquaintance, Be Forgot! 

Brown took offense recently when his opponent mentioned Reagan’s well known propensity to pose with beverage alcohol.  Ronald Reagan has now become such a seamless garment of myth that Republican candidates can get all huffy when elements of the myth-building are recalled by their opponents.

Democrat Martha Coakley worked in the reference during a debate, saying “While everybody thought he was fun to have a beer with . . . I think that he did a great disservice to this country.’’

Brown pronounced himself disappointed at such disparagement.

“He brought great pride to our country at a time when we needed it and helped to bring down the Soviet Union, Iron Curtain. Just to [say] go out and have a beer with him, that’s, I think, inappropriate.’’

Student of History Scottie needs a refresher course in the importance of beer in crafting Reagan’s everyman facade.    His staff staged serial stein hoistings, crucial anecdote generation to putting across his less than populist measures.

The beery myth making reaches its apotheosis at the Reagan Library of course, where they hauled in parts of an Irish pub Reagan visited and dressed up the food court with them. 

Reagan did do one concrete thing for beer.

   He signed federal legislation forcing the states to raise the drinking age to 21, launching a generation of youth binge drinking.

*But then they saw his truck