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.

There’s Something About A Train 

 For the Presidential Transport Complete-ist, exciting news from the plains of Texas.

MTH Electric Trains has launched a series of HO model trains commemorating an obscure tribute to former President H.W. Bush.

In 2005 the Union Pacific Railroad appears to have had time and rolling stock on its hands, so the company painted up one of their engines to vaguely resemble Air Force One’s color scheme, and slapped Bush’s name on it.  It served as the highpoint of a railroad exhibit mounted by Bush’s Presidential Library, with as little apparent connection to his presidency as the Clinton Library’s ill-fated “Art of the Chopper” fiasco.

MTH’s model engine comes complete with a “Detachable Scale Snow Plow” and  “(2) Cab Figures“  , all for just $ 189.95.  Coming soon is a more glamor-ific model for a mere $ 429.95.

Why the Union Pacific’s interest in Bush family sucking up?  UP CEO Richard K. Davidson served on a Homeland Security infrastructure advisory board, presumably working to assure that security didn’t get in the way of tons of toxins riding the rails.  He served the Bushes in other ways as well, bundling for Junior and receiving a Kennedy Center board post.

Iron Horse Came

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: 

 Admires So Much Of Both In Self

                                                            

 Doomed* Massachusetts Republican Senate Candidate Scott Brown has gone all Dan Quayle in his first ad leading up to the late January special election.

Scratchy black and white film of John F. Kennedy touting a tax cut morphs into our Scott, somehow color-free but also eager to splash some money out of the till.

Brown clearly sees himself on the path of glory.

 But timing is key.

“They’re powerful, rich, handsome people and they’re dead. And they can’t make a difference, while I still can.’’

— Republican Senate  candidate SCOTT BROWN, comparing himself to John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana 

 Old Acquaintance, Be Forgot! 

Brown took offense recently when his opponent mentioned Reagan’s well known propensity to pose with beverage alcohol.  Ronald Reagan has now become such a seamless garment of myth that Republican candidates can get all huffy when elements of the myth-building are recalled by their opponents.

Democrat Martha Coakley worked in the reference during a debate, saying “While everybody thought he was fun to have a beer with . . . I think that he did a great disservice to this country.’’

Brown pronounced himself disappointed at such disparagement.

“He brought great pride to our country at a time when we needed it and helped to bring down the Soviet Union, Iron Curtain. Just to [say] go out and have a beer with him, that’s, I think, inappropriate.’’

Student of History Scottie needs a refresher course in the importance of beer in crafting Reagan’s everyman facade.    His staff staged serial stein hoistings, crucial anecdote generation to putting across his less than populist measures.

The beery myth making reaches its apotheosis at the Reagan Library of course, where they hauled in parts of an Irish pub Reagan visited and dressed up the food court with them. 

Reagan did do one concrete thing for beer.

   He signed federal legislation forcing the states to raise the drinking age to 21, launching a generation of youth binge drinking.

*But then they saw his truck