Hi Christine!
"We meant to change a nation, and instead we
changed a world." - RR, 1988 farewell address
I suggest you also see Part I. One thing they did not mention in the series is how poor his eyesight was and the effect that had on him as a child. Up until he was about 14 he was very withdrawn because he simply could not see - a tree was a green blob. He tried on his mother's glasses and suddenly the world opened to him.
That documentary also showed the essence of leadership: while RR valued public opinion, he knew it was his job to do what was right despite what the polls were telling him. Unlike his predecessors, he walked away from phony arms control treaties with the Soviets that would have made him popular and he consequently became the first U.S. president to actually negotiate a reduction of arms.
RR said the Soviet system was totalitarian and evil. RR said the Soviet empire would collapse and was laughed at by those who thought themselves "smart". He pushed his policies and the Soviet system did collapse. And the balanced budget is primarily a result of the ensuing "Reagan Peace Dividend".
Another remarkable thing not in that documentary occurred during the 1990 elections in Nicaragua. (Remember, when RR took office in 1981, Central America was on the verge of going entirely Marxist, so he determined that the U.S. would support the non-totalitarians. The elections were possible because only because of his policies.)
So on the eve of the 1990 elections Peter Jennings stated emphatically on ABC Network News that all the opinion surveys showed that the Sandinistas would win handily and that whatever else we would learn from the results, they would mean that the 1980's policies of Ronald Reagan had been a total failure.
About 24 hours later the democratic coalition led by Violetta Chamorro (sp?) won a greater upset victory than any known in this country, it was a landslide against the Sandinistas. Poor Peter Jennings looked aghast and made no mention of RR or his policies that next night. Typical. Later it would be learned that Nicaraguans lied to pollsters because they did not trust them or the media that had supported the Sandinistas during their reign of terror.
(Very interesting: RR refused to invoke executive privilege for himself or any member of his WH during Iran-Contra. RR waved attorney client privilege. RR refused to criticize the out-of-control Walsh. RR said he wanted the truth - what a contrast to the current resident, the almost President Clinton.)
Btw, here's what an honest liberal said about RR and Clinton, before the latest Clinton broke:
Richard Reeves November 21, 1997
CLINTON, REAGAN AND
HISTORY
LOS ANGELES -- Michael Beschloss, who I think
created the job description of "presidential historian,"
finished a little talk here last week by naming a
half-dozen presidents he thought would grow in
reputation as time goes on. The last two he mentioned
were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
The scene could not have been more charming in
a city that sometimes has problems remembering that
it has a history. Beschloss was a guest singing for his
supper at one of dozens of dinners, this one hosted by
John Cooke, a vice president of Disney, to raise
money for the public library.
So what do you think of that, I was asked later in
table conversation. I certainly agreed about Reagan, a
leader I chose not to follow. I even agree with
Reagan's boast in his farewell address at the end of
1988: "We meant to change a nation, and instead we
changed a world."
For the better? Or worse? There were many
things I disliked about Reagan, beginning with the
people he brought into the government, and beginning
that list with his judicial appointments. The men and
women President Reagan put on the federal bench will
be changing the country for at least the next 20 years.
In contrast, President Clinton has come close to losing
his constitutional power of appointment to Reagan's
heirs, led by Senators Jesse Helms, Orrin Hatch and
Trent Lott.
Reagan, whatever I think, is not going to be
judged by his many flaws and failures and
contradictions. The right-wing Main Street populist
chuckled away as unindicted Wall Street conspirators
lunged and grabbed at the pockets and savings of the
average man Reagan said he revered. He ran up
gargantuan public debt and demolished ordinary
people with soaring Social Security taxes and
punishing labor policies that made you understand
where Karl Marx came from.
But then he was a major figure in destroying
Marxism -- or crippling it for a long time -- by
demonstrating that the productivity of capitalism could
crush Soviet socialism in most endeavors, including
military spending. With his sidekick, Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher of not-so-great Great Britain,
Reagan led his followers in the global triumph of
economics over politics. The man did change the
world.
President Clinton signed on to a lot of that.
Wittingly or not, the Democrat who ran as the agent
of change gave up after a couple of years -- and his
disastrous attempt to re-make the American
health-care system -- and joined the Reagan
revolution. Some will say he completed it, balancing
the federal budget on the backs of the middle class
and the backsides of the poor.
Time will tell if that will work, and history will
judge whether Clinton's magnificent flexibility served
the interests of most of the people most of the time.
He is trying now to refocus his energies on globalized
commerce and America's racial and class dilemmas.
But he seems to have run out of energy and time. Or
perhaps he has run out of luck.
Luck evens out. Bill Clinton has had more than
his share in the past six years, beginning with the fact
that his 1992 opponents for the Democratic
presidential nomination proved to be inept, as did the
campaigning President George Bush and, later, House
Speaker Newt Gingrich. With three years to go, the
president has -- for the moment, at least -- lost control
of the agendas, domestic and foreign.
I say "at the moment" because Clinton has more
talent than luck. I once asked the photographer Robert
Capa how much of picture-making was luck, and he
answered: "It's all luck. But the funny thing is that the
same people always have the luck."
Clinton will always have it. He's good.
But talking later with Beschloss, I surprised him,
and certainly surprised myself, by saying that if I had
to say right now what the Clinton presidency will be
remembered for, it would be "Waco." Most of us
ignore or deny it now -- it is too stupid, too painful
and still incredible -- but he was commander in chief
in the month of April in 1993 when the U.S.
government attacked its own citizens for no good
reason.
uexpress.com
Reeves is wrong about Reagan's economic policies, but right about most of the rest. I hope you see Part I. |
