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Yesterday Once More

The cutting edge of Ronald Reagan cultism just got a whole lot hipper, with the unveiling of a spankin’ new Reagan IPhone app.

Your Reagan Library [still Iran-Contra free!]  can’t keep track of its holdings or recall our love affair with Pakistan’s      loathsome General Zia, but they are going for techno-bloat with an app bringing you all Reagan’s greatest hits – now you need never be without the wry asides and soft chuckles that killed communism.

Trunk Line   

Your Results May Vary

Thoughtful readers of sprightly Internet phenom Talking Points Memo reacted in horror today to the display ad which popped up on some screens.

Continuing the Go-It_Alone, maverick-y before it was cool ways that endeared him to a nation, the George W. Bush Presidential Library bought space on the liberal bastion, reaching out to a new generation.

Bold New Platform       

George W. Bush has announced exciting new plans for his Presidential Library, spraying the horizon with many, many numbered lists of intentions, notions and fanciful ideas.

Just what will his legacy be all about?

The Bush Library will continue Bush’s on-going worldwide effort to devalue words by grasping them tightly to himself:

Join The Freedom Registry for only $50!

In the spirit of the age, the Bush Library hopes to mobilize the sinister power of social networks through its Member Advocates. But if the roaring success of the Bush administration alumni blog is an indicator, Face-book will remain fairly Bush-free.

The Bush Library web site is doing its part to erase the Kennedy assassination stain from local consciousness, offering a map of “Dallas Landmarks” with Dealey Plaza unmarked.

Not From Around Here?

We’ll be seeing a lot more of Bush’s attempts to tie himself to great “dissidents,” hiring a guy from Columbia whose “One Million Voices Against FARC” Face-book page harnesses the power of the web against the plucky jungle fighters by presenting seven [7] photos, one of Cheney and two of them of Bush.

Something called ” The Freedom Collection of the Bush Institute’s Oral History Project” looms, in which “the Institute will bring together dissidents who are participating in the Freedom House oral history project. They will share their experiences and promote best practices.”

Not to be confused with the just announced “George W. Bush Oral History Project,” by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

 Friendly Ghosts

What sort of probing questions might the Miller-narrians ask?

Lets take a loving look back at the Reagan Administration, the Millerists’ hard hitting interview with Caspar Weinberger.

What did they chat about?

The interviewer glides lightly over Iran-Contra, and asks Weinberger no questions about hiding documents in the Library of Congress, lying about it to the Special Prosecuter, his indictment, or his pardon by George H.W.Bush on eve of trial.

“Weinberger’s notes proved to be an invaluable contemporaneous record of the views and activities of the highest officials regarding those sales. They revealed, among other things, that contrary to his sworn testimony, Weinberger knew in advance that U.S. arms were to be shipped to Israel in November 1985 without Congressional notification, in an effort to obtain the release of U.S. hostages, and that Israel expected the United States to replenish the weapons Israel shipped to Iran. Weinberger’s notes also disclosed that, contrary to his sworn testimony, he knew that Saudi Arabia was secretly providing $25 million in assistance to the contras during a ban on U.S. aid.“

Lame or not, the Miller Center best get going,  given some Bush administration figures shall we say slippery memories.

        Grave Importance   

Fancy color sketches and models of the George W. Bush Presidential Library have been loosed upon an anxious world, and must be mined for clues.

Like, where will they bury him?

Assuming Bush follows the pharaoh-ic path of FDR, Truman, Ike, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and his father’s plan at College Station, he’ll have to be buried on site. If the “Texas Rose Garden” above is a little too outdoorsy, there is the Freedom Tractor Beam inside.

 

The careful viewer will note a presidential quote on the wall behind the generic assembled white folks.

It’s a line from Bush’s 2004 Republican Convention acceptance speech, in which he claimed we are summoned by a “calling from beyond the stars.“  Here on Earth Bush had begun the year attempting a call to greatness with a vague drumbeat for Mars exploration, then buried the exciting initiative by the time of his State of The Union address.

The convention speech itself was delivered with a spaceport motif. 

The Library grounds are touted as a Bush gift to the nation, or at least SMU, providing “numerous spaces for events and gatherings,” but don’t plan your protest rally just yet.

“… unlike the formal, tree-lined landscape of the main campus, this garden contains hills and draws and winding paths that conceal surveillance cameras and other security equipment.“

      

To Equatorial Guinea, where the Dark Continent meets the Deep Blue Sea, and oil floats the ruling family to a higher realm.

A spectacularly corrupt kleptocracy has evolved this West African island and some coast into a tropical gangster parody.

Think Of It As A Name Tag  

President-Till-The-Cows-Come-Home Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has presided for three decades since killing his uncle, the previous dictator, and now the New York Times reports that a swanky bit of Malibu may be forever E.G.

Strongman scion and heir apparent Teodoro Nguema Obiang spends much of his time in a multimillion dollar mansion in this suburb of the stars, despite US laws that nominally bar corrupt foreigners from our shores. 

Equatorial Guinea has been in an expansive mood lately.   The regime recently sprang a mercenary jailed in a murky coup attempt, freeing an unhappy Simon Mann to pursue his claim that Son Of The Iron Lady Mark Thatcher helped the plot.

President Obiang, shown here gathering strength from the martyred Che Guevara,    has friends throughout the world. 

The regime’s website practices a level of delicious shamelessness, posting headlines like  “DEMOCRACY AT ITS PEAK IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA” and leaving them up despite mockery.

  A vast presidential mansion is being built, and even better,  a presidential library! 

Where did this big idea come from?

Equatorial Guinea has had a storied relationship with one American who has promiscuously spread himself over our nation’s Presidential Library universe.

World Beater

Joe L. Allbritton is a cartoonish exaggeration of Washington incestuousness, serving on boards for the Kennedy Center, the Lyndon Johnson, Reagan and George H.W. Bush Presidential Libraries, and a failed effort to bring George W. Bush’s to Baylor University.

Alblbritton financed his service to former greats’ memories through his ownership of Washington’s Riggs Bank, a daisy chain of power ensnaring Russian spies,  Saudi princes, a Bush uncle, General Pinochet and the Obiang family.

For hiding Obiang and Pinochet millions Allbritton lost the bank.  Riggs paid $39 million in US civil and criminal penalties, $8 million in Spain.  Allbritton and his son personally paid one million dollars to Pinochet torture victims.