Remembering Reagan

When Ronald Reagan left the White House and retired from public life back in 1989, it was well known that at 78, he would not be as active an ex-President as others, from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter. When he announced in 1994 that he was suffering from the disease sadly nicknamed the Long Goodbye, Alzheimer’s sprang to the forefront of the public consciousness. And now that he is gone, we find ourselves looking back collectively.

Known as the Great Communicator, Reagan brought an almost royal classiness to the White House unseen since the days of JFK. Everything was white-tie, the finest china, the fanciest guest list. Reagan’s cheerful what-me-worry optimism was a decided change from Jimmy Carter’s often dour seriousness. He could always be counted upon to deliver a stern face or a comforting expression when called for, and as we are constantly reminded, he made America "feel good about itself again."

Unfortunately, that's not all he did.

Reagan also brought an air of selfishness and utter insensitivity to many issues. Whether it was declaring that ketchup was good enough as a vegetable for school lunches, announcing on Thanksgiving Day that unemployment benefits would be taxed, or never offering anything close to a balanced budget then blaming Congress for fiscal excess, the Reagan Administration too often displayed the uglier aspects of the “Me Decade.”

Reagan ignored the early years of the AIDS epidemic while cutting social spending to the bone and beyond, crippling health care, education, housing and other public services. His tax policies recklessly redistributed wealth upwards, increasing the number of families below the poverty line by a full third. His mania for deregulation paved the way for the savings and loan scandal, the bill for which you and I are still paying through our tax dollars.

He brought about an end to the Cold War by embarking on an uncontrolled arms race, forcing the Soviets to bankrupt their economy in a vain effort to keep up – and it was revealed only after the Soviet Union collapsed that its military was nowhere near the fearsome beast he claimed it was.

For someone who claimed to champion freedom across the globe, it should be noted that Reagan winked and said nothing when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians -- the very same atrocities which George W. Bush exhumed fifteen years later to justify invading Iraq. He was Our Man in Baghdad at the time, you see, and thus could do no wrong. It will be interesting to see how the commentators who now rush to heap posthumous praise on Reagan handle this little matter...but it's more likely that it will be simply ignored.

His anti-Communist “evil empire” rhetoric made its way into the popular culture of the 1980s, emerging in such gratuitously Soviet-bashing movies as Red Dawn, Invasion USA and Rocky IV as well as the TV miniseries Amerika. (It’s not like this was new to him. Back when he was head of the Screen Actors Guild, he was an FBI informer, ratting on his fellow thespians at the first hint of any political thought deemed unorthodox.)

But Reagan’s most lasting impact may well be not the tripling of the national debt nor the relentless government-is-the-enemy GOP mindset, but rather the transformation of the Presidency into an endless PR campaign. His handlers knew all too well that since Reagan the man was a genuinely nice guy, looked good on TV and could deflect inconvenient questions with a smile and a wave, Reagan the President could get away with almost anything. And so Reagan the President was able to push through policies that hurt children, the disabled, the sick, and the elderly – people who were usually incapable of fighting back – while Reagan the man stood above it all, untouchable.

Reagan was the Teflon President; nothing stuck to him. No matter how many policy disasters came about, from the secret wars of El Salvador and Nicaragua to the constitutional morass of Iran-Contra, he personally was never held accountable for anything. As House Speaker Tip O’Neill recounted in his memoirs, a constituent whose disability benefits had been cut came to him for help. As they discussed the problem, the constituent told O’Neill he was being too tough on Reagan and asked him to lay off. “Who do you think is cutting your benefits?” O’Neill asked, stunned. “It’s not him,” came the confident reply, “it’s the people around him.”

Reagan was the perfect figurehead President, delegating the actual responsibility to his staff while reserving the TV appearances for himself. No one else could have gotten away with blundering his way through a press conference with one misstatement and gaffe after another; no one else could have gotten away with looking strongly into the camera and blaming other people for his own mistakes.

And because of his personal appeal and charisma, he got away with it all. Once, in an inadvertently aired microphone test, he chose to quip, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” In the face of queasy public reaction, Reagan’s response, instead of admitting that nuclear annihilation might not be such a laughing matter after all, was to blame the media for reporting it in the first place. And people agreed, brushing it off as a tempest in a teapot rather than as a disturbing insight into the most powerful man on Earth.

After he left office, the conservative movement transformed him from a mere mortal into a full-fledged political saint, determined to name monuments and buildings after him in all fifty states, even trying to get his face added to Mt. Rushmore. The invocation of his name and memory was so powerful that when the conservative media pounced on rumors that CBS’ planned miniseries The Reagans was insufficiently worshipful, the network was scared into yanking it.

Reagan’s death has hastened this transformation, and the current media coverage tends to overlook the dark side of his Administration. Part of this is simply what normally happens when anyone dies: accentuate the positive while glossing over the bumpy parts. But we should not let this prevent a full and honest appraisal of his Presidency, no matter who it offends ideologically.