Poor little Neocon, so protective of the ghost of Reagan past. My understanding is that, as President, Reagan was never quite there to begin with. There wasn't that much to fade away. A view supported below. I was actually looking for something about Donald Regan's book, which, aside from blowing the cover on the role of Nancy's astrologer, said that Reagan was a very reduced presence after the assassination attempt. From NYT, 10/9/88,AN EMPTINESS IN THE OVAL OFFICE, a review of LANDSLIDE The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988. By Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus. Illustrated. 468 pp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $21.95.
The most striking result of the authors' reporting is their portrait of the President as an astoundingly uninvolved figure with little interest in the business of government. The Tower board report on the Iran-contra scandal condemned the President's detached management style, and some of his closest aides, such as Michael K. Deaver and Donald T. Regan, have described Mr. Reagan's passivity in their memoirs. But this volume adds some vivid new details, such as this comment from Edward J. Rollins, the President's campaign manager in 1984, about the re-election effort: ''He would make small talk . . . But there was never any real inquisitive effort to get to the nitty-gritty on his part. I don't think he ever focused on it. The truth of the matter is that Ronald Reagan is the perfect candidate. He does whatever you want him to do. And he does it superbly well.''
Mr. Reagan brought this same quality of monumental lack of curiosity to the daily workings of the White House. For example, the decision by Mr. Regan, then the Treasury Secretary, and James A. Baker 3d, the chief of staff, to switch jobs at the beginning of the second term was made without consulting the President. When he was informed of the move - probably the most important personnel decision of his last four years - Mr. Reagan ''asked no questions'' and acquiesced amiably.
This book documents how Mr. Reagan's style allowed some of his more ambitious and less scrupulous aides to drag the Administration into the Iran-contra affair. The President set the overall tone - get the hostages back - but that simplistic notion left a vast vacuum, and the passionate schemes of men like Oliver North expanded quickly to fill the empty space. In this telling, Mr. Reagan is a bit player in the whole Iran-contra drama, but a highly culpable one.
The fact is, Ronald Reagan has always been an actor playing a President. His daily schedule is like a movie script, complete with dialogue and stage directions; John Sears, his former campaign manager, says that the President's approach to his job was shaped by his Hollywood days. He was the star, notes Mr. Sears, but not the director or the writer. It was a dependent role, in which success rested on carrying out the orders of others. The authors summarize Mr. Sears' account of the Reagan approach this way: ''Hey, I'm just the star. I'm the performer. Others were supposed to worry about the rest of the show.''
He was the star, not the director. Just the kind of guy you want running the country, right, Neocon? It'd be nice to know who the director was, anyway. John Sears is hardly some commie liberal journalist. I guess that's sort of the role you'd like to see "photogenic" Dan Quayle to be playing under Bill Kristol's direction, eh, Neocon? |
