flowers: $500,000

The merger of Hollywood and the White House becomes official today, when the wonderfully homely Chelsea Clinton gets hitched in Rhinebeck, New York, in an obscene extravaganza that will cost a guesstimated $3 million. Flowers: $250,000 (some say $500,000). Vegan snacks: $250,000. Portable toilets: $15,000. The bride's jewelry: $250,000. Fireworks: classified.

What a distance we have traveled since Harry Truman carried his own suitcase to Union Station after the Eisenhower inaugural in 1953. He didn't even have a pension! (Congress passed the first presidential pension act in 1958, in part because of Truman's precarious financial situation.)

Now our presidents leave office as rich as Oprah, as Stephen Spielberg, as Barbra Streisand--as rich as all the Tinseltown celebrities who will attend that wedding today. Few have played this game as well as the father of the bride. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

a rare public embarrassment

Much to my surprise, the House of Representatives has actually brought charges against the lovable but corrupt Charles Rangell, the Adam Clayton Powell of today. The Gray Lady is surprised as well: in today's paper, David Kocieniewski terms the event "a rare public trial of the Democratic Congressman this fall, a potential embarrassment for the Democratic leadership during the election season." How funny! Congress does something right for a change, and that's an embarrassment? I'm impressed that the House has that much sense of shame. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France...

Of course France was never occupied by the Nazis; it was occupied by the German army, aka the Heer. That's one of the absurdities of Inglourious Basterds--it uses "Nazi" as a euphemism for "German." Most German soldiers weren't Nazis, though the officers all had sworn allegiance to Hitler personally, beyond their military oath.

With that off my chest, I'm embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed this movie, especially Brad Pitt as the hillbilly in command of a band of homicidal Jewish commandos, and Christoph Waltz as the SS colonel-detective on the other side. Each deserves a best-actor Oscar, though both can't get it, and neither will. The movie is just too politically incorrect. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Dos vedanya, Tony!

This delightful photo of BP's former chief executive appears in the UK Guardian under the equally delightful headline: 'BP sends Tony Hayward to Siberia to appease US'. What better place for him than Russia, after the experience he's had this spring and summer, navigating the shoals of American politics? There too corporations find themselves at the disposal of the head of state. Perhaps Vladimir Putin will assign the slinky Anna Chapman as Mr. Hayward's personal assistant--he has promised the expelled secret agents "good jobs and a bright future" now that they are home again. There would appear to be room for her in Mr. Hayward's back seat. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Bye, bye, Mr. English pie!

The lead-footed Tony Hayward has been thrown over the side of the BP recovery vessel, to be replaced by the American Robert Dudley. Unlike the U.S. Congress, where bad judgment is rewarded by increased influence (see the career curve of Barney Frank), private corporations do have the ability to jettison those who preside over disasters, whether they deserve to be thrown overboard or not. But coming as it does after a year and a half of governmental meddling in business affairs (see the career curve of Rick Wagoner, former CEO of Governmental Motors), I can't help wondering if the Obama White House had something to do with BP's decision.

There's a word for this sort of thing. Right-wing bloggers call it "socialism," but that isn't quite right. Rather, it's state capitalism, as practiced in the 1930s by Germany, Japan, and Italy, and as more recently revived in China, Russia, and Venezuela. The government doesn't actually take over an industry, as the Labour government did in Britain in 1945; instead it leaves the corporations in place--or create new corporations, in the case of China. But they are hollow. The government hires and fires the managers, and it confiscates the profits, whether by taxation or simple extortion. BP likes to pretend that its initials stand for Beyond Petroleum. Mr. Dudley knows better: the new company is Beyond Profitability. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Pain is pain, he says

The nation's chief tax writer will face a Congressional inquiry for, among other things, not paying his taxes in full. Isn't that a hoot? Perhaps the Secretary of the Treasury will appear as a character witness. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Lindbergh

.

My father sailed to America in May 1927, and for the rest of his life he told how the Spirit of St. Louis flew low over the steamship one day while the captain sounded the latitude and longitude on the ship's whistle. True or not, the story is one that I savor as proof of the moment's significance. Merely to have been on the North Atlantic that afternoon, sharing it with Charles Lindbergh, was an honor worth telling for half a century.

The review is in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford