The adoration and eulogies of Reagan have provoked sober backlash. I hear it every morning with callers to C-SPAN's "Washington Journal".
When the news broke, CSPAN opened the phones over the weekend. The praises of Reagan were overwhelming at first. It sounded like most of the populace thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Gradually, more callers expressed opposing views.
4 or 5 days after his death, opinions have evened out, somewhat. I like the man, but I'm not keen on his presidency, nor his governorship.
Perhaps the best coverage on his legacy I've read was in the LA Times. It was a long obituary and mentioned the positive and negative.
I prefer balanced over biased coverage. Don't know why people would want to rewrite history and regard Reagan as one of the greatest Presidents of the twentieth century, because he made them feel good or defeated the Soviet Union or stopped spiraling inflation or whatever. Some of the things he's given credit for are not exactly all his doing, and some of the calamities that he and his administration produced have been ignored by his admirers.
I heard Congressman Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) this morning on C-SPAN, promote replacing Andrew Jackson with Ronald Reagan on the $20 bill. Someone else suggested putting Reagan on the $10 bill.
Give me a break. He's got enough buildings and roads and facilities named after him.
I wouldn't mind if his face was plastered on a line of no-stick frying pans. After all, he was known as the "Teflon President", cause negative news wouldn't stick to him.
Posted by raacluse at June 9, 2004 11:50 PMDon't get me wrong, I don't think Reagan was perfect, I think reaganomics was, well, quite silly. But mebbe folks think he was so great because, well, he was. You don't have to be perfect to be a fantastic leader, you've just gotta do it with heart, integrity, and devotion to people & principle. Helps if everyone loves you too...
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 10, 2004 04:17 PMThe "Teflon president" moniker was coined by Pat Schroeder, the ex-Congresswoman from the Denver area. I heard her explain how she came up with the nickname, when she was reminiscing on C-SPAN last week. It came to her, when she was making breakfast for her family, one morning...
Posted by: raacluse at June 14, 2004 12:06 PM