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The Shadow Knows  

As a curious world awaits Sarah Palin’s looming Oprah encounter, tiny shards  of her upcoming polemic are emerging.

For all her roguishness, the Governor follows a predicable political path, lying about Ronald Reagan.

The Associated Press prepared a catalog of her detachments from reality, and her Reagan claims are true to the spirit of the man, in that she confidently proffers demonstrably falsehoods with a smile.

“Palin: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and ”showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”

THE FACTS: The estate tax,which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president.

Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October 2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.“

Shape Up, Punks! 

Michael Reagan is taking a break from identyfying New Reagans in order to diss the post-catastropy Republican field.

” We are attaching ourselves to certain individuals, and as a result we have become a party of people and not a party of principles. We are Romney-ites, or Huckabee or Giuliani devotees, or McCain-ites, or supporters of Gov. Sarah Palin – when we need to be just plain Republicans…In the Balkans, warfare between factions was the status quo. As Republicans, if we continue to Balkanize and fail to unite, then fighting one another will be our party’s status quo.”

Stirring words from a man who upon his death compared Gerald Ford with Saddam Hussein.

 Take Nancy Reagan, Please!   

“The Divine Gift of Motherhood” desperately tries to process the Palin Clothes Express into the simple country girl narrative, and somehow comes up with the haunting parallel of…..Nancy Reagan!

Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller’s calls Palin a misunderstood  Everygal in need of a beauty boost:

“Most of us need a little help to look absolutely fabulous. You can almost see yourself being put into her position, becoming a surprise vice-presidential nominee, with a newborn baby and nothing appropriate to wear. You know your looks are going to be scrutinized from head to toe and all around. Considering that the entire budget spent on her behalf actually could have been spent on one outfit, by some of the rich elite, I think she was her frugal self.”

Indeed.

Further point-missing erupts when Gerold-Miller takes comfort from history, in this case the sunny version of herself Nancy Reagan presented last year in a White House fashion retrospective at the Reagan Library.

“What comes to mind most easily is a similar controversy over the pricey, high fashion clothing worn by the elegant Nancy Reagan. Most of the clothes were borrowed, and some were donated by the designers. Many of the pieces were in turn donated by Nancy, as is the intent of Palin.”

Nancy Reagan took dresses as gifts, didn’t report them, promised to reform when she got caught, and kept doing the same thing throughout Reagan’s administration.

Androids! 

….And choose to present herself as a great philanthropist by retroactively donating some of her ill-gotten gains.

The show closes next week, although Betsey seems to think it opens then.

Reagan: Better Read 

Our gal chose to close last night quoting the sainted Ronald Reagan [after earlier misattributing “city on a hill” to Reagan, rather than John Winthrop, whom he quoted.]
And magnificent words they were.  The empty vessel that is Sarah Palin, already caught channeling FDR assassination fans on the glories of small town life,  was pumped up with yet another oddity from the Republican party’s controversiall past.

As was widely noted, Palin’s closer was lifted from Reagan’s “Operation Coffee-cup” crusade against Medicare, back when it was the opening wedge of socialism.