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

Remember, Remember The Eleventh Of September

The George W. Bush Presidential Library has no building yet, but in our up to the minute virtual world they’ve begun filling the Internets with thoughtful reminders of the glorious Bush Era.

The Library website has an exciting 9-11 look-back slide-show,    featuring our hero on the phone,

videoconferencing, 

and   staring urgently.

All of our old friends are there:

Tony Blair,

    Hamid Karzai,

even good old Pervez Musharraf.

And never forget: we invaded for the children!

I’d forgotten former New York Governor    George Pataki was with Bush on the rubble mound

in NYPD drag, anticipating the butch look  Bush would sport the next seven years.

  $15.95 While Supplies Last!    

……although in practice the Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation likes to break little children’s hearts.

The cool kids will also be hanging this Nixonian wisdom on the tree.