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REAGAN LIVES! (SORTA)
The Power of Myth: As a shareholder in both
America and the English language, I would
like to offer up a partial list of terms that
should be done away with immediately for the
good of both, as these terms are misleading
or offensive or just plain stupid: "bromance,"
"Octomom," "delicious" to describe anything
other than food or drink, "boo" when not
used to scare people, and "pimp" applied to
anything other than personnel management in
the hospitality industry. .
One phrase that should also be thrown
into a bag and drowned like a kitten is "the
party of Lincoln and of Reagan," that old saw
that Republicans like to bandy about on TV
but which is purely rank boondoggle. First of
all, while it's true that Lincoln was the first
Republican president, that was in the 1860s,
when the Republicans were the liberal party-
centralized government (or "republic," hence
the name) sovereignty over state purview, and
human rights for black people, remember?
We fought a war over
it? Although the cur
rent state of Lincoln
nostalgia as a wholly
owned subsidiary of
the Obama adminis
tration may be a bit
spurious, the notion
that Abraham Lincoln
and Dick Cheney play
in the same sandbox
is patently absurd.
Secondly, the
breathless invocation
of both names is an
attempt to give the
GOP the cachet of
American folk heroes,
of giants who once
bestrode the earth,
licking their weight
in wildcats while
calling for a repeal
of the capital-gains
tax. Ronald Reagan,
more than any other
Republican president of the last century
(including Eisenhower), seemed to embody the
stuff of myth, a plainspoken man of the West
with Hollywood charisma but blue-collar sen- *
sibilities and the steely resolve to spit in the
eye of America's enemies. And subsequently,
Reagan has been credited with legendary
deeds of Paul Bunyan proportions: single-
handedly he saved the nation from economic
malaise, restored America's belief in its own
greatness, and crushed the Soviets, ending the
Cold War without firing a shot.
Trouble is, none of that actually happened.
As journalist Will Bunch points out in his new
book Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan
Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts
Our Future (Simon & Schuster, 2009), over the
20 years since Reagan left office, historians
and economists have come to the consensus
that the economic recovery was due to global
factors and economic cycling beyond Reagan's
control, and that the Soviet Union was ready
to collapse from its rotten infrastructure
and its people's clamoring for Western-style
consumerism. The lionization of Reagan,
which began during his presidency but which
expanded to colossal proportions after the
man was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and ren
dered virtually critic-proof, hinges upon a set
of milestones that have proven to be movie-
set papier-machS.
And why is this a problem? Two words
and an initial: George W. Bush. The persona
of Bush, a privileged son of old Connecticut
money turned Texas good-ol'-boy, his political
career and his policies while in office were
a studied attempt at harnessing the Reagan
myth. Unfortunately, the myth ignores certain
details. While Reagan did slash taxes in 1981,
he raised them every year for the next six. And
while he did engage in hawkish posturing with
America's adversaries, he would have regarded
the notion of starting a war, especially a
"shock and awe" war that targeted civilians,
as immoral and unthinkable, as his own diaries
have shown. Reagan believed in diplomacy
with the enemy and in force as a last resort,
and while we frequently get the sound-bite
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," we
never hear about the Reagan-Gorbachev
arms-reduction pact, the most positive act
of Reagan's presidency and the one of which
he was the most proud. Bush (more accu
rately, his handlers)
adopted the highlight
reel of the Reagan
years—the contrived
photo-ops, the defi
ance of Congress,
"Bring it on"—but
failed to consider that
Reagan's success was
a combination of his
personality and unbe
lievable timing, nei
ther of which favored
Bush. In other words,
Bush was no Ronald
Reagan, but then
neither was Reagan
himself.
Bunch's book
doesn't take a hatchet
to Reagan (in fact, I
actually have a bet
ter opinion of Reagan
now than I did before
I read the book) as
much as it seeks to
deflate the myth and expose those who have
sought to profit from it, especially Grover
Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and (not
coincidentally) the Reagan Legacy Project, and
the 2008 field of GOP candidates for president,
all trying hard to - fit into Reagan's pants and
failing. He also expresses some concerns for
Barack Obama, who has already taken political
cues from the Reagan playbook. Maybe the
party of Lincoln and of Reagan will turn out to
be the Democrats. Scary stuff. Boo.
Get Out: Local author (and yet another reason
to love this town like you would your own
mother) Philip Lee Williams, author of All
the Western Stars and The Heart of a Distant *
Forest, to name my favorites of his many
books, will be appearing at Barnes 8. Noble on
Thursday, Mar/12 at 7 p.m. He'll be signing
copies of his new book Elegies for the Water,
Poems (Mercer University Press, 2009), and
if you're really, realty well-behaved, he might
actually read some to you. This will make you
happy like the sun is warming your tummy.
Lastly: And we lost another one. Philip
Jose Fanner, one of the best science-fiction
authors of the last century, passed away at
age 91 at his home in Peoria, IL.
John G. Nettles
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