Remembering history the way they wished it had been
Signed, Sealed & Disappeared 
Barack Obama’s campaign has yanked the cheesy presidentish seal that has been called mocking, outrageous, and possibly illegal by somewhat fevered observers.
The real crime of course is burdening the eagle with the existing Obama graphic 
– it still looks like a small town electric co-op logo.
No word if the Reagan Library will drop or modify it’s presidential sealish jelly jar adorning design. 
THRILLING NEWS! 
Somehow Presidential Libraries have joined Nigerian Princesses as a spam generative-worthy category. One blogger reports a Mrs. Oswald soliciting funds in her capacity as “Presidential Library & Museum Former Director International Online Lottery Co-coordinator.”
We have arrived!
“We will take your concept, idol or mentor and create a mammoth statue out of it.”
The Dream 
…And The Ditch 
The vision is taking hold at the Venice of Houston.
Historic Real Estate Inc. – so steeped in, um, something, is building the weirdest incarnation yet of one man’s obsession with gigundus presidential heads.
David Adickes‘s gift to the nation is his obsession with immense busts of our revered former leaders. He already has theme parks centered on these First Oddities in South Dakota and Virginia, but it will be so much nicer with tour boats. And shopping. Somehow the mystery of Easter Island paired with the likes of Marvin Van Buren will draw swarms of Cinnabon munchers.
Adickes’s anything to draw a crowd spirit has already led to the heads use as backdrop to a
rap video. 
Think water ballet!
Every jot and tickle of drama surrounding access to Hillary Clinton’s papers gets extensive play in right wing blogs, generally along the lines of “I wonder what she’s hiding” or “Hmmm.”
We can now watch with interest the reaction to the Chicago Tribune’s blow by blow of the ever changing status of Rudy Giuliani’s papers.
After his failed attempt to extend his term in mayor’s office by three months, Rudy’s thoughts apparently turned to History.
As his mayoralty entered it’s final days, the Giuliani appointed Records Department Commissioner signed an agreement transferring his administration’s papers to the Rudolph Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs. The Commissioner says he agreed to give away the papers because the municipal archives’ staff had been halved under Giuliaini:
“We went from 92 people in ’93 to 44 in 2001…That’s the largest percentage drop of any city department. The archives were overstressed.”
The agreement gave Giuliani veto over releasing papers: “”whenever Rudolph W. Giuliani has a personal interest or right in a document separate and apart from the interests and rights of the city, his approval shall be required before any such document may be released or disclosed by the center to the public.”
Protests , lawsuits, and City Council legislation turned this back, with Rudy eventually dropping the language and returning the papers. Or so he says.
The city’s records chief says he thinks he got them all, but “I couldn’t testify in court that every paper came back.” And New York historian Michael Wallace told the Tribune “There should always be an asterisk next to any citation of the Giuliani papers, saying … ‘The chain of public custody of these documents was broken…He had to be sued repeatedly to get him to disclose even the most inoffensive material …Somebody with that kind of track record, you don’t want to turn over to him the task of archiving his papers.”
At the time the agreement was signed the Rudy center was but a gleam in the incorporating attorney’s eyes. Even today it’s only existence is as files at Rudy’s corporate offices.
Man and mementos
The Associated Press presents Barry Landau as international man of mystery, dancing with queens and first ladies when he isn’t precociously worming his way into an Eisenhower White House invitation. Since then they claim he has been operating at the nexus, working the fulcrum, and in and of himself representative of the convergence of all we hold dear in politics and entertainment.
And snagging a lot of tchotskis over the years. Some of his collection will be reflected in “The President’s Table: 200 Years of Dining and Diplomacy,” first of a threatened three volumes of Presidentish stuff.
“He’s the kind of guy you may not notice in the pictures with celebrities. He is 59 and has been in the company of presidents for nearly 50 years. He is tall and bearded, with a home full of history and a head crammed with names, like boxes in an overstuffed closet ready to tumble out.”
One name that doesn’t tumble out in AP’s account is Hamilton Jordan.
Landau was supporting witness to allegations that Jimmy Carter Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan 
used cocaine during a visit to Studio 54, the New York nightclub which from almost any perspective symbolized everything wrong with America in the 70s.
Drugs were the least of their problems
Club owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager faced prison for tax evasion, and offered up Jordan’s name as plea bargain bait. Their attorney was sinister New York fixer Roy Cohn, 
Joe McCarthy’s former counsel.
Cohn, clubbing. 
The Special Counsel* appointed to investigate the allegations rejected them, and found Landau to be, shall we say, a questionable witness:
“There were only three people who claimed to have direct information concerning Mr. Jordan’s alleged use of cocaine in Studio 54: Rubell, Johnny C., and one Barry Landau. As witnesses, the most charitable thing that could be said about them was that they were utterly unbelievable….Landau claimed that on the evening of June 27, 1978, while at Studio 54, Mr. Jordan asked him for cocaine. Despite what he had said on the 20/20 program, however, when we pressed him, he did not claim to have any knowledge that Mr. Jordan in fact took cocaine that night. Landau said he did not hear Mr. Jordan ask Rubell or anyone else for cocaine, did not hear any other discussions about cocaine, and did not see Mr. Jordan or any other member of the Jordan group take cocaine. He also said that prior to August 24, 1979, he was never told by Rubell or anyone else that Mr. Jordan had taken cocaine in his visit. Landau declined to be interviewed by the FBI about June 27, 1978.20…Although Landau said that other persons were with Mr. Jordan that evening when Mr. Jordan asked Landau for cocaine, each of those persons explicitly denied that Mr. Jordan asked anyone for cocaine in his presence. I had very serious doubts about Landau’s credibility under any circumstances.”
None of this stops Landau on the book tour. He’s planning to hit the Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Bush Presidential Libraries, and for some reason doing both the Ford Archive and Ford Museum on separate days.
Somehow he is skipping the Carter Library.
*Youngsters may not recall, but one part of the hell that was the 70s was the appointment of Special Counsels at the hint of White House impropriety.
