NOT ONLY IS SCOTT WALKER A FANATICAL REAGAN CULTIST, BUT HE LIES ABOUT HIS PLACE IN THE CULT

In 2013, Scott Walker spoke at the Milwaukee County Republican Party's annual Reagan Day dinner and told a story about how he was -- unexpectedly! -- granted permission to caress a sacred Reagan relic while he was at the Reagan Library for a speech:

"One of the other great privileges I had, that was unbeknownst to me, that they had set up, was, we came around the corner on the tour, before I gave a speech in front of about a thousand people at the library, and the curator there had, I see him and he's got white gloves and he's got something in his hand.

"And they brought over a pair of white gloves to me and he said, 'No one has touched this since President Reagan. It is his mother's Bible that he took the oath of office on. Mrs. Reagan would like you to hold it and take a picture with it."

As Jud Lounsbury writes at The Progressive,

At this point the crowd makes a collective gasp. Several "awwwwhhh"s break out and then the they break into an applause as Walker slowly nods.

But Lounsbury talked to Jennifer Torres, the Reagan Library's artifacts curator -- and it turns out that this didn't happen "unbeknownst to" Walker, nor did it happen because Nancy Reagan specifically wanted to pass the sacred torch from her late husband to Walker. It happened, according to Torres, because Walker had specifically requested to have his picture taken with the Bible. And Walker probably wasn't the first to touch it after Reagan, Torres told Lounsbury:

Since the President's passing, several staff members and conservators have handled the Bible, all while wearing gloves. It is unknown if President Reagan was the last to have to have touched the Bible without gloves, but it is doubtful. It may have been handled by family or staff before it was brought to the Library. Once the Bible was at the Library, it would only be handled with gloves per collections management practices.

It's already creepy that Walker and his wife celebrate their wedding anniversary, which is also Reagan's birthday, with a dinner featuring Reagan's favorite foods. It's creepy that Walker, in the video above, says that thinking about Reagan's influence on his life and the lives of others "actually kind of gives me the shivers even talking about it." Later in the video, Walker notes that the unsuccessful election to recall him was on June 5, the date on which Reagan died -- or, as he creepily puts it, "the date that President Reagan was born into eternal life."

But mix this all with what (in his crowd) are self-aggrandizing lies and you now see the pure essence of Scott Walker. Oh, and remember that this is a guy who's forever telling us that he's the one to take on Hillary Clinton because he's young and geared toward the future. He may say that, but he seems awfully obsessed with one fetishized aspect of the past.

(Via Matthew Vallone on Twitter.)