Not only is Bill Clinton hijacking Republican rhetoric, he is trying to hijack Ronald Reagan’s ineffable style. Staffers in the former president’s Los Angeles office report that they are getting requests straight from the Clinton White House for material relating to Reagan’s triumphant trips abroad as president-schedules, videotapes of speeches, etc. The Clintonires are especially interested in Reagan’s 1984 trip to Normandy (“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc”), as well as other journeys to Japan and Ireland. The requests go from the Reagan offce to the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley. Because a sitting president does not, by law, have to go through the time-consuming formalities of filing a Freedom of Information Act request for such information, horrified Reaganites find they have no choice but to oblige the Clintonites in their ceaseless quest to Xerox Reagan’s reelection strategy — not to mention everything popular about Republicanism in general – – and superimpose Clinton’s face atop it.
