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McNaughton’s Group  

Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.

Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!

McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:

“The information is historical. If it is not familiar to you – Google it.“

Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective.  Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height.   The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.

McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with  piano chords of doom.

Beck Banishes   

Awakened from their slumbers by patriot/seer Glen Beck, conservatives across America rush to join the antic showman in tossing Teddy Roosevelt over the side.

Until now, who knew that TR’s hysterically masculine crackpot vision of a white man’s world had some problems?  Evidently not Jonah Goldberg.

Wonkette peers under the hood of Teddy’s utopia:

“One day soon, Jonah’s going to hear about this “Nationalized Parks” thing, and he is NOT going to be happy about it.“

Grant Me This 

It was a gathering of the conservative faithful at CPAC this past weekend, and the search for novel political analogies reached strange new heights.

Among the oddities was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose doomed Presidential campaign took its first tentative steps off the cliff by reminding the assembled Neo-Confederates    of a past glorius Republican office holder,  U.S. Grant.

Somehow today’s conservative struggle resembles Grant’s grinding Civil War victories over the South, his scandel infested administration, or his occasional lunges towards protecting blacks and Republicans from the Klan in the South. Which is unclear, but Pawlenty has his own upbeat, crackpot version:

“We’re on the side of limited government. And, like Grant, we fight.“

But perhaps not win.  Pawlenty came in fourth in CPAC’s presidential straw poll.

Also up for CPAC recycling,  Margeret Thatcher, AKA The Iron Lady.  Indiana Representative Mike Pence, straw poll fifth place holder, put America’s striking coal miners and Trotskyist local office holders on notice by evoking everyone’s favorite Churchill in drag. Just wait till that North Sea oil saves our ass!

A Romantic View Of History

Pence also entertained the crowd with a musty Ronald Reagan yarn, one where Reagan encountered a magic pipe-fitter.  This proto Joe The Plumber begged Reagan to save tax cuts for the rich, so guys like him could be hired by them.  Pence has trotted out the tale of this wondrous encounter at least twice going back to 2005.

CPAC turned to Glen Beck for insane historical tales with a grain of truth.

Peeing all over John McCain’s myth of a muscular progressive Republican past, Beck rightly called Teddy Roosevelt an interventionist.

But calling Roosevelt a socialist is as insane as labeling Obama one.

 

 

A Killer Tree, A Pony And A Welfare Queen Walk Into A Bar…
 

The delightfully named David Rambo taking his skills learned producing “CSI” to the crime scene that was the Ronald Reagan presidency.The packagers of  Harry Truman and Teddy Roosevet’s pissy endearment for the one man stage have turned their attentions to the beloved former president.

Reagan will supply the one-liners musty even in their day, and Rambo is to bring the sparkle.

Sadly, this meant the departure from the project of Hollywood right wing icon Lionel Chetwynd, who from the rather rough clay of George W. Bush’s 9-11     response fashioned a heroic narrative.  

Rough Ride Into The Sunset

The knives are out in the Republican Party, with losers plunging them deep into the rotten corpses of two GOP icons.

Continuing the pursuit of necro-nostalgia exemplified by primary campaign genuflection to the garments, airplane and widow of the sainted Ronald Reagan, the party faithful are choosing up sides over which long dead leader can somehow resurrect the party.

The Heritage Foundation’s Conn Carroll speaks for those somehow betrayed by real existing conservatism:

“Big government, national greatness, George Bush/Teddy Roosevelt style conservatism lost Tuesday…There simply was no limited government Reagan style conservative for Americans to vote for in yesterday’s election.” 

Looking for thoughtful answers,  Maureen Dowd went boldly went in search of those careful conservatives so beloved in Our Nation’s Capital.  She went the extra mile, going the extra office over to interview fellow Times columnist David Brooks, who likes it Rough Yet Battery Powered:

” The party will need a leader to strike out in a new direction, a fiscally conservative president more like a high-tech Teddy Roosevelt. ”

They might start with re-insuring the safety of food.