You got your own private Reagan hero worship thread, Neocon (still #2? Or did you bump him to #1?) I don't think many people here really want to see this all regurgitated again. Well, I'm sure the "Sanity" crowd is more than happy to see it all again, and again, and again, but you could replay it for them on any of the numerous political threads you guys rule if you wanted.
There are quite a few books out by people who served in the Reagan administration that do plenty to cast doubt on the heroic Reagan legacy you postulate. None of them have come out as closet leftist since then, either. You can start with David Stockman on the economic side, George Schultz on foreign policy, Donald Regan on economics as well as insider backbiting, Michael Deaver and Larry Speakes on how to run a modern media-driven presidency. Those guys are all easily dismissed, of course. Then there's always Peggy Noonan no doubt the author of many of those stirring speeches you're always crediting to the old man. "Barren terrain" was her phrase for the Reagan intellect, I think.
That particular legacy is all out there, in print, for posterity. But what could they know? They were there, they just didn't have your clear eyed vision of what a brilliant guy Reagan was. Of course, the same group of right wing pundits that fuels the Clinton hatred industry is always hard at work establishing their own "history" that ignores all the first person accounts out there from the Reagan era. This is somewhat at variance as to the normal understanding of how history works, but that's life. |
