Jet with jelly beans: Reagan's plane goes public

[emad]

Dan Glaister in Simi Valley
Friday October 28, 2005
The Guardian


Nate and Alisha Traveller, from Utah, were mightily impressed with the Gipper's plane. "It's awesome," said Alisha. "You can certainly see who he was and how he did things." Nate added: "We watched his funeral on television and were touched. That's my seven-month-old daughter: her name's Reagan."

The Travellers, on holiday in California, were among the first visitors to see Air Force One, the gleaming blue, white and silver Boeing 707 newly installed inside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The plane, which served six other presidents as well as Reagan, has the air of a museum relic from a folksier, more easy-going age.

The cowboy actor-president must have rubbed shoulders and probably backsides with aides, journalists and cabin crew as he passed through the plane, barely wider than the average sports utility vehicle. It leaves little space for the separation of powers so beloved of today's control-obsessed politicians. "Back then I guess there was much more proximity between the press and the politicians," said Cody Allen, who had made the trip from Santa Monica. "He was a gregarious individual and he probably relished the contact and being centre-stage on the plane. He was an actor, after all."

The actor's props were on display in Air Force One: a programme for a presidential trip to China lay on a desk, the presidential crockery and metal cutlery were ready in the galley, and the president's jacket hung on the back of a chair.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1602546,00.html

[WI_DEM]

1. I wonder if anybody will name their child "chimpy" after Bush II?

[hatrack]

2. Who gives a shit?

I mean, seriously?