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Daze Of Decision

The Kennedy Library used to [and may still] have a display of Jack’s Greatest Hits from press conferences of yore.It was amazing.  Even allowing for who chose the footage, the fawning questions setting JFK up to knock it out of the park every time were breathtaking.  But it wasn’t heard to convey energy and what passed for wit after the torpid Eisenhower years with Mom & Dad.   I think we’ll be spared the excitement of future Woodstock anniversary commemoration, but someone thinks there’s still juice to be extracted from round numbered Kennedy dates.HBO’s “A President To Remember” nominally marks the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s inaugural.  Creator Robert Drew has great black and white footage of men in suits looking decisive, beyond that I’m guessing.The publicity materials are sparse, but the film seems blissfully unaware of the vast efforts by actual historians and journalists to take Smiling Jack down a peg. It’s still selling the original Kennedy premise of energy, drive and vague goals.Drew laments“We’ve had generations that have never known a active lively president who was well-regarded” What’s presented is Kennedy at his empty-suitest.  The publicity clip opens with JFK sound over video that sounds spliced together from a  couple of sources, and amounts to emphatically stated blather of the highest order:“I run for the presidency because i have strong ideas about what this country must do. That’s what i think this election is about, that’s what we’re going to begin to do next Tuesday”

Meet Your New Overlords!

Hopes for a dynasty-free nation soared with the sputtering end of George W. Bush’s administration and the announced retirement  of the Kennedy’s last office holder.

Over The Shoulder, Out Of Reach

But new threats emerge.

Jimmy Carter’s Grandson has been elected to the Georgia State Senate, and Richard Nixon’s Grandson aspires to do in a Long Island Democratic Congressman if the Republican nomination can be secured.

The drums have grown silent on George P. “little brown one” Bush’s inevitable rise to greatness, but all this can’t but help build the tired stench.

What’s Under The Tree For You & For Me? …

 

“It should be noted that this comic is neither a piece of Reagan sycophancy, nor is it political satire”  -Talking Points Memo

 

What’s with these guys? First the vaguely progressive Huffington Post faithfully reprints Associated Press’s recycling the disproved George W. Bush Jacket ‘n Tie fetish myth.

Now Talking Points Memo, with a staff that actually writes stuff, endorses a Ronald Reagan comic that’s kind of a mess.

TPM may not find the work sycophantic, but it’s certainly the product of  a sycophant.

Comic author Don Smith doesn’t fake the fawning. Did you know that, unlike some, Ronald Reagan “really loved this country.”

It’s true!

“I mean he constantly was saying, ‘The United States is a city set on a hill… He constantly would say, ‘The United States’ best days are still ahead.’ I mean that is amazing!“

Smith’s command of facts amazes as well, managing to work wrong dates into the assassination attempt panels.

And Smith confidently applies the simple truths of the Reagan Era to our present difficulties, with a happy result:

“Regarding radical Islam terrorism, I think his philosophy would be “We win, they lose,” just as it was regarding the Soviet Union back in the 80s. And frankly, that kind of moral clarity is desperately needed right now!“ 

So Lifelike!  

It was probably just liberal Marxists off for a spoof, but for some the dream was real.

The year was 2004, and someone claiming to be “Ann Cuolter” didn’t care enough about their fraud to come up with a better fake name.  In September of that year “Ann” launched a petition to put George W. Bush on Mt. Rushmore.

To call the response tepid would be to insult lukewarm water.  Only 137 have signed in four years, and many did so only in order to broadcast their hatred of Bush and the notion, or to promote 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Actual Ann “It’s Never Too Warm For Leather” Coulter shown here in all her  finery.

Elsewhere In Alternative Bush Reality:

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me

The nation has taken Will Bunch to its heart, thrilling to his knocking Ronald Reagan down a couple pegs in his Tear Down This Myth.

Until now

Lately Bunch is embracing a cuddly vision of Reagan as an old violence-averse softee who would not stoop to torture like that mean George W. Bush.

“BUNCH: I do think that some of the swaggering rhetoric that Reagan used…have been I think misinterpreted by Republicans that this was his actual policy, when actually his policies didn’t have the same kind of cowboy attitude that some of his rhetoric did. I can’t imagine, particularly torture, I just doubt that would have been something that would have been condoned during the Reagan administration.

He actually was kind of a — in fact this was used in a headline in the Washington Post — he was actually kind of a pussycat so to speak when it came to the job of killing people through various acts of war.”

Well yes, if offshore don’t count.

The old pussycat just couldn’t help himself when it came to hiring the swarthies to kill, maim and torture for the cause, whether car bombing in Beirut,  dubiously funding our Funding Father equivalent Nicaraguan Contras,  to our gallant witch burning allies in Angola.

Perhaps that is the problem with Bush, that unlike the old magician he did terrible things “in our name” and didn’t leave a sufficient number of cut-outs in between for Americans to feel good about themselves.