George H.W. Bush—an equal parts obscure and hated American president whose only historical significance is being half responsible for George W. Bush—didn’t care for Ronald Reagan! Mikhail Gorbachev told the Nation in a recent interview: “In 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: ‘Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him.” Is it too late to give George H.W. Bush’s stupid one term to Reagan, where it belongs? [Raw Story]

• Happy New Year (or “Rosh Hashanah”) to all Wonkette’s Jewish friends! Traditionally one rings in the new year by dipping apples in honey and telling one’s parents that of course, one is absolutely going to synagogue tonight. [Washington Post]
• An alternative way to celebrate: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced earlier today that the Holocaust was a myth. Ok! [New York Times]
• And speaking of Iran, Obama is going back on all Reagan’s Cold War/Star Wars missile defense plans in favor of sending a signal to Israel and the Arabs that the US is well aware of what a bad scene Iran is. [New York Times]
• Max Baucus will do exactly whatever his new friend Olympia Snowe would like him to do to his health care bill, so long as it does not alienate his old group of friends, the Democrats, in the process. [Wall Street Journal]
• Apparently nostalgic for a time when people cared about this, the House and the Senate easily passed some crucial legislation BANNING the ACORNs from receiving federal money. [Los Angeles Times]
• Kim Jong-Il told some Chinese guy, an envoy, that no one had anything to worry about re: North Korea nuking the planet maybe. Despite this, for whatever reason, people are still worried. [Reuters]

Think tanks have this magical ability to fix all the evil in the world, just by thinking. This week they solve the Middle East crisis (ABOUT TIME) and explain how the financial crisis has affected everyone from children to small animals to the newest crop of starving, underpaid/unpaid interns in DC.  And the Heritage Foundation even manages to find the time to praise everyone’s favorite dead conservative, Ronald Reagan, again. MORE »

Today, flags are at half mast — including Ronnie’s, in this undated publicity photo — and America is mourning as we say a fond farewell to America’s First Lady, actress Jane Wyman. Ms. Wyman was one of the wives of our greatest president, Ronald Reagan, before he replaced her with Nancy “Reagan” Davis. MORE »

The pointing and the thumbs-up and all the usual crazy-man hand gestures Rumsfeld performs whenever he drops in on Iraq?

Deeply offensive and vulgar displays, no different from flipping the bird or “the shocker.”

That’s what U.S. troops are now learning before they’re sent to Iraq, the Marine Corps Times reveals this week. Dirty details are after the jump.

MORE »