Mr. Write's Page

Years ago, some astute fellow observed that Jimmy Carter was a mean man with a nice philosophy, and Ronald Reagan was a nice man with a mean philosophy. Amen to that.

My opinion of Carter is mixed because he’s from Georgia, but I always disliked Reagan. His rise to prominence offended me greatly, and I hated his politics.

The only other politician who gets under my skin in a major way like Reagan — the only other one who causes my upper lip to rise into a snarl at the mention of his name — is Dick Cheney.

Reagan rose to fame as a B movie actor whose public persona was sort of a male version of a dumb blonde. He played the same genially ditzy character in every film. I dismissed him as a ham actor and a doofus.

Later, Reagan became the host of the television series Death Valley Days, and he did TV commercials for General Electric. The genially ditzy act remained the same. Like John Wayne, he played the same role every time he appeared.

When he announced his candidacy for Governor of California, I laughed. The man was a ham actor and a doofus. When he won, I shook my head sadly over the dumbing down of the electorate.

When he ran against Gerald Ford in the Republican Presidential Primary, my blood pressure spiked again. To me, Reagan was just an empty suit, someone taking advantage of his name recognition, like a reality show contestant.

But inexplicably, plenty of people in the country took him seriously. Empty suit or not, they loved him.

When he got elected President in 1980, I was greatly offended. I still considered him to be a lightweight — a former actor who was still in character. But the Republican political machine was marketing him with great skill.

Reagan famously said, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

Casting around for issues to illustrate that statement and fire up the masses, they settled on these:

States’ Rights — No one can tell YOU what to do.

Cut taxes on the corporations — When they get rich, the bounty will trickle down to all of you little people.

Slash government regulation — Get those bureaucrats out of the way so private enterprise can operate the way it wants to.

Anti-communist zeal — The God-given mission of the USA is to thwart the Evil Empire.

Ramp up defense spending — Only the U.S. military can stop them Russians from ruling the earth.

The Reagan people also systematically cut funds for many non-military programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, education, and the EPA. It was strongly pro-America, they said, to stop supporting all those undeserving deadbeats.

Meanwhile, the national debt went from $700 billion to $3 trillion.

In late 2005, the government’s shameful mishandling of Hurricane Katrina finally turned the public against George Bush the younger. I got some satisfaction from that, because I was anti-Bush from the beginning.

But to my great chagrin, Ronald Reagan’s popularity never waned. Today, large numbers of people remember him warmly. And, in the la-la land of the Republican faithful, he has been glorified, exalted, beatified, and deified.

That doesn’t change the facts. Reagan was merely a one-time ham actor and an empty suit. A genial ditz. A doofus with handlers.

In the 1980s, when the USSR finally imploded, the fall of communism was correctly attributed to a complex series of events and circumstances, internal and external.

It was generally held that the cost of the Cold War had finally emptied the Soviet coffers; we unwittingly ran them into a financial ditch. Internal forces then took advantage of the government’s weakened condition.

Reagan, always the crusading anti-communist, rightfully crowed about their demise. But he never claimed credit for it.

It didn’t take long, however, for the revisionists to step in. Late in Reagan’s life, when sanctification of the man by the conservatives was at its height, the story changed.

Their claim: Reagan had not simply been President and a key player when communism crumbled; he had cleverly orchestrated the fall.

Give me a freaking break.

Cartoonist Kirk Anderson, whom I featured here earlier this month, perfectly captured Ronald Reagan and how he is fondly remembered by certain Americans today:

Most people remember the hype. I remember Ronald Reagan as a lightweight who was used to advance a very mean philosophy.