America's Favorite Projector Screen

     Was it a Disney invention?  I don't remember.  It's a neat trick: you take a three-dimensional head shape, coat it with reflective motion-picture screen material, set it against an absorptive background and project a carefully sized and cropped movie or video of a person's face on it.  It'll look almost alive, especially if you have good control of the observer's distance and viewing angle.

     The Framers and Founders come in for similar treatment: we tend to project our beliefs and issues on 'em, then take the illusion for reality.  In dealing with men like Jefferson and Washington, you have have to go back to primary evidence: what did they actually leave written down?  When in their life did they write it, and under what circumstances?  Those men were masses of what appear now to be contradictions -- future President John Adams, already involved in the Patriot cause, defended the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre of 1770, describing the (at least nominally) Patriot mob that provoked matters in absolutely scurrilous terms.

     Jefferson, who never saw a third rail he didn't almost touch while tapdancing adroitly around it, is frequently misrepresented.  He came in for an especially egregious ride at the hands of the newly-elected Speaker of the House back in January, and while it would be nice to lay all the blame at the feet of Mike Johnson, it turns out he had plenty of help, some of it from unexpected and largely innocent corners.  There's a nice podcast that tells the tale -- and it serves as a reminder to always look things up.  Too many people enjoy repeating plausible tales for the joy of it, and never bother to do any homework.