A belated salute to the Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott, who July 4th shared with readers his meditations on America and the world’s obsession with replicating homes of the great and the good, or at least George Washington. Â
Mount Vernon, soon to host another superfluous “Presidential Library,” holds first place in the nation’s architectural imagination, or lack thereof. Kennicott spotlights the many sad recreations of the Big House, and Lydia Mattice Brandt’s research into America’s mysterious practice of making foreigners and school children troop through replicas at half a dozen World’s Fairs and exhibitions.
We Might Be Giants   Â
Current star practitioner of this architectural ghost walking is Alan Greenberg, whose accomplishments include a toy house Mount Vernon for future Chief Executives with excess family cash, and a “flagship” store for the always strenuously patriotic Tommy Hilfiger.
Ronald Reagan exhibited some of these morbid symptoms, enjoying work at a replica of George Washington’s desk before he was president even of the Screen Actors Guild.
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!
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.
The echos of Tim [who?] Pawlenty’s heartfelt tribute to Ulysses S. Grant had barely faded when eager young Republican cubs sprang forth to re-seal Grant’s Tomb.
Small but perfectly formed North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry has introduced legislation to banish Grant from his perch on the $50 bill, replacing him with a fellow all the kids love, Ronald Reagan.
The circle jerk of history is proven in McHenry’s press release. Why must Grant go? He’s much less popular than Reagan, Historians Say.
Plausible, but which historians? Here we fall down an especially twisted conservative rat hole.
McHenry cites a 2005 survey of historians done for the honest brokers of the Wall Street Journal opinion operation, performed by the law prof author of “Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 7th edition” on behalf of the focus of evil in the modern judiciary, the Federalist Society.   The Journal guy involved devotes much of his accompanying article to reassuring the faithful that while George W. Bush rated only average, his big bets might still pay off!
Given the sponsors you won’t be surprised to learn that the undisclosed historians panel was corrected for the “far left tilt” of the academy, stacking equal numbers of liberal and conservative historians.
Who knows. We don’t get to see the list, but the stage dressing screams that the fix is in.
Lame rhyming: it’s not just for brown people anymore!
From the frozen wastes of New Hampshire come fresh new voices of reaction-with a beat!
Yes, Dartmouth has yet again spawned new conservatives, but this time the youngsters are lifting their voices in song, turning that rap music into a weapon for good, not just ho/gangster celebratin’.
The hearty stew that is contemporary conservatism is a murky mix, and would-be hipster reactionaries are doing their part to further confusion.
Reagan youth yearns to enjoy somewhat contemporary rap music with all their friends, while reinforcing belief in all that is right and true.
Thanks to the stern visaged “Young Cons,” today’s youth can turn the former music of the oppressed into hymns of complacency. As we learn from the “Young Cons Anthem” [Actual title!]:
These mopes haven’t embraced your more lively versions of that rap. Theirs is more of your drone-y slowpoke rap, where you can make out every syllable because their E-Nun-Ci-A-Tion is about the only energy shown.
But their message is perhaps best absorbed in lyric form, ’cause their prose would stunt a generation:
      Kentucky proudly hosts a fake Abraham Lincoln boyhood cabin, now replicated on coins.
