Bill Berkowitz (WorkingForChange): Hijacking history

[Dudley_DUright]

Grover Norquist's Reagan Legacy Project has its eyes on many prizes

Will his face replace Alexander Hamilton, America's first treasury secretary, on the $10 bill? Or will it share half the dimes in circulation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt? Will his birthday become a national holiday? Will his likeness appear on Mt. Rushmore, alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt? Will every county in every state rename some public facility after him? If Grover Norquist has his way, within the next decade the image of President Ronald Wilson Reagan will be permanently stamped upon America's landscape.

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And, in one of those "Art imitates Life" moments that often wind up as "Life imitating Art," the work of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project was featured in a March 2003 episode of The Simpsons. "I feel like we have come of age!" Norquist said at the time. "To be featured on The Simpsons means our movement has reached critical mass."

In the episode, Crusty the Clown decides to run for Congress -- representing Springfield, the hometown of the Simpson clan. Before Team Crusty was established, the scene switched to a "smoke-filled room" where a number of local GOP politicos were gathered:

Mr. Burns: Welcome, fellow Republicans. To start with the old business, Brother Hibbard will read a report on our efforts to re-name everything after Ronald Reagan.

Dr. Hibbard: All Millard Fillmore schools are now Ronald Reagans. The Mississippi River is now the Mississippi Reagan.

Dracula: (Points to Frankenstein, seated next to him) And my good friend, Frankenstein, is now Franken-Reagan. Bleeeh!

Mr. Burns: Ehhhhxcellent...

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