Republicans Won’t Stop Trying to Name Ocean Waters After Ronald Reagan

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<a href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c35748-15A.jpg">Ronald Reagan Presidential Library</a>

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The saga continues. Via The Hill:

Republicans and Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee argued colorfully Wednesday over a GOP bill that would name 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean after the late President Ronald Reagan.

The panel is weighing Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) bill that would rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from 3 miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.

“While certain left-wing organizations have characterized this legislation as trivial, there is no debate our 40th president served with the highest distinction,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), speaking in favor of the bill that honors Reagan’s 1983 designation of the EEZ.

Republicans in Congress have been at this for a while now. It keeps with their pattern of attempting to name virtually everything in sight after our 40th president. In 1998, Washington National Airport was officially renamed, via legislation, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, even though it was already named after a man who most credible historians can agree was a considerably superior president to Reagan. Deification has reached such a point that during the 2012 Republican National Convention, rumors swirled that the convention’s “mystery speaker” was going to be a hologram of Reagan. (It turned out to be a non-hologram version of fellow actor Clint Eastwood instead, to the disappointment and anger of many.)