The Reagan Reality

Reality and Reagan

One thing for sure, the vast disconnect remains between the reality of Ronald Reagan and the continued myths of greatness surrounding Nancy and his years as President.  One must include Nancy, who’s ever brooding presence over her Ronny as his handler and go between made her likely the first woman co-President.  It is not because there is a lack of recorded history of those years that we do not see them for what they really were.  No less than 10 memoirs by former cabinet and staff members were published.  These included tell all books by Haig, Deaver, Reagan (Donald), and Watt to name a few.  It is the excellent management of his image and revision of history through omission or outright falsification of events that supports his fairy tail image. 

What shines through all the smoke and myth was Reagan’s uncanny ability to read the audience and deliver the script successfully.  Often put through grueling days and weeks of prep and rehearsal before any public speaking engagement, Reagan was the consummate actor in the greatest role of his career. While many lines delivered remain memorable, his knowledge lapses and frequent credibility gaps gave cause for great alarm at the time. 

He was very competitive coming into office but was a man with very narrow vision.  He was so prejudiced that it colored all of his beliefs and affected his entire staff.  Many times he came off as delusional.  He governed in absentee, leaving decision making to the staff.  His administrations were marked by scandal and criminality, punctuated with military excursions.  The failure of our own intelligence community to recognize what was happening in the Soviet Union during his time in office resulted in our total lack of preparation for it’s downfall, setting the stage for genocides and ethnic struggles down the road.

His second term was marked by indifference, and ravages of old age and dementia likely caused his total loss of control of the office and led to a string of crises great and small.  Great failures of his terms include denial of the aids epidemic, supply side economics, deregulation, tax reform, Nicaragua and the unprecedented growth of government and spending, the very things his scripts railed against.  

I think we should remember this President as a great orator and actor as President, but we should not forget the reality of those eight years.  Who would want to be like Reagan and repeat those years all over again?  No one in their sane mind.