Baltimore Sun: Memories of Ronald Reagan (Subtle Slam Alert!)

[displacedtexan]

The headline should really read:
Jules Witcover subtly slams Ronald Reagan today


Memories of Ronald Reagan
Jules Witcover

Originally published Jun 7, 2004


WASHINGTON - The passing of Ronald Reagan at 93 brings with it a rush of personal memories, none of which tell what kind of president he was but illustrate why he so effectively plucked the heartstrings of his fellow Americans.

I first met him in 1966 when he was running for governor of California, occasionally flying around the state with him in a beat-up old propeller plane previously used by a turkey farmer to cart his birds to market.

snip

Once he explained to me in great earnestness how the armed forces were integrated. It happened, he said, in 1941, at Pearl Harbor, when a black ship's steward came up from the galley, grabbed a machine gun and shot down an attacking Japanese plane. And that, Mr. Reagan said, was when segregation was ended in the Navy.

It made a great story, but the fact was that the armed forces were not integrated until after World War II, by order of President Harry S. Truman in 1948. My gentle reminder to Mr. Reagan went unheeded - and it never stopped him from continuing to tell that tale.

snip

Another time, he informed me that government welfare was not needed because the goodness of the American people would always take care of the needy. If somebody's house were to burn down, he assured me, the victim's neighbors would show up the next day and rebuild it on the spot.

more (the ending is especially subtle)...
http://tinyurl.com/39ggv

[EdGy]

1. He really was clueless all the time

I just heard Helen Caldicott talking about her meetings with him, and she said that he was absolutely wrong on every fact he mentioned. He also cited information from the Reader's Digest as his intelligence sources.

If it were not so tragic, it would have been funny.

[kskiska]

2. Reagan's Fantasy

"Back in the days when the economy was expanding, the cold war ending and the peace dividend looming large, Ronald Reagan cherished a famous fantasy about flying with Mikhail Gorbachev over the sun-soaked swatches of Southern California, with its mosaic of turquoise swimming pools and tidy lawns and fat white garages plump with new cars. 'Those are the homes of American workers,' he would proudly declare, describing a Hollywood dreamland where auto mechanics have summer houses and anyone can go to college."

-- Time Associate Editor Nancy Gibs, September 10.

[lumpy]

3. The needy Reagans were

well taken care of by their ultra-wealthy friends and sponsors who made sure their financial needs were met. Ronald lived in some Hollywood never-never land unaware of the realities of life.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Someone back in the 80s said this about Reagan:

He would sit next to you at a dinner and was so animated and involved in the conversation that you were convinced by the end of the hour that you had made a new friend. But the next time you saw him, there wasn't any sign that he recognized you at all.