Architects of Victory      

Presidential grade inflation reaches a tragic apotheosis with the unveiling of an exciting new Frank Gehry design for DC’s long awaited Eisenhower Memorial.

The scheme accomplishes so many goals:

– obliteration from sight of DC’s only recognition of Lyndon Johnson.

– dimming if not completely blocking Education Department views of the Capitol, giving Department employees the experience of life behind a billboard.

– further destruction of L’Enfant’s Washington street grid.

– bringing to DC more of the Stalinist bombast we’ve all so enjoyed at the World War Two Memorial.

The thing is huge. Tiny people will cavort amidst giant topless pillars to nowhere strewn about the plaza, with vast metal mesh screens blocking the Department of Education’s Lyndon Johnson Building from sight.  These jumbo-trons in steel will portray scenes from Ike’s career, “amplifying the setting and creating an ideal background for the memorial experience.”

Or, as greatergreaterwashington said, ” It’s like we’ve taken the tarps that are supposed to hide the parking garages at Nationals Ballpark and turned them into a monument.”

But not to worry.  “we’re very concerned about that issue,” Gehry said of the tapestry’s impact on the LBJ building.”

Beneath the masses of metal a collection of stones will be arrayed in a semi-circle. This half-assed Stonehenge may host the memorable quotes we all associate with the Hero of Anacostia Flats.

The Memorial Commission presents as almost a done deal its land grab of Maryland Avenue, with the street and the triangle northwest of it already absorbed into Ike’s lebensraum.

We can look forward to further retrospective attempts to position Eisenhower as a quiet force for Civil Rights, stepping briskly past Ike’s view that “All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes.”

Also perhaps best avoided is his only gotten son, Richard Nixon.

The Pants Send A Signal As Well

One time teen sensation Britney Spears marks the California Winter Solstice as she does always this time of year: displaying herself in a “Dick” t-shirt.

Spears proudly wore the same quasi-opinionated garment a year ago, exciting spirited discussion of what she could possibly know about Watergate and other crimes.

Worn Out 

Oh, It’s Never Over

The Presidential Cryptologists at Flatsigned Press have pulled another one from the grave, recruiting the late Richard Nixon to hype a collection of Watergate recordings on cassette tapes, somehow missing the 8-track era entirely.

We last enjoyed Flatsigned’s antics when they surfaced something Kennedy conspiracy-ish allegedly signed by the also dead Gerald Ford. Fallout included a company lawsuit [still before the courts] against mangy hat-wearing racist Don Imus for mocking them while reading Flatsigned’s ad copy.

Flatsigned’s Chairman Tim Miller is presiding over a bankrupt company, but he’s found a new field of endeavor, billing himself as a “presidential historian” to such discerning media presences as Neil Cavuto  and leather queen Gordon Liddy.

Miller won’t stop at despoiling the dead.

The haunting resemblance of people, things, and geographic entities to Richard Nixon is much commented on, and the youngsters at Wandering Goblin have a new entry in the Nixon lookalike parade:

Nixon as Vampire 

But, as in so many things, Cuba was ahead of the curve on this one: 

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.