Eulogy to a Teflon coffin from a liberal who visited Reagan's library

[rawstory]

Hey. Glad we've finally got something worthy of Reagan, and an interesting read, beyond the usual heaps of scorn on the Teflon president -- an actual visit to his Simi Valley library, from your ever-working and underpaid liberal Drudge alternative, http://www.rawstory.com

OBITUARY: RONALD REAGAN
Eulogy to a Teflon-draped coffin

By Brian Dowell
RAW STORY COLUMNIST

“We owe respect to the living; to the dead, we owe only truth.” —Voltaire

SIMI VALLEY — For your average scatterbrained member of the left-wing media conspiracy, finding the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is not a simple feat.

The large ranch-style building crouches in the hills above Simi Valley, California, and is guarded, not only by an authentic chunk of the Berlin Wall, but by signs that warn that the area is a natural habitat for rattlesnakes.

Driving in requires transgressing a very curvy uphill driveway. To be honest, I wasn't sure I'd make it all the way up to the parking lot, in my piece of crap American made automobile. I suspect this was done on purpose; a subtle way to remind our country that, because of Reagan and the system of thought that he represented, the people who can afford expensive cars with decent engines will always have an easier time in life than the rest of us. Even in death, Reagan has found a way to keep the poor people down.

Until Reagan's flag draped coffin was propped up in its lobby, this tourist trap certainly didn't get very much public or media attention. This shameful monument to California's secret conservative past has remained in a vacuum, hidden away like a crazy aunt or a heroin problem.

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Of course, the Reagan Library (or any presidential library for that matter) is a self-serving, masturbatory, historical whitewash. The negative is mostly ignored, and the positive is completely exaggerated; it's the exact kind of crap you'd expect in any museum that someone devoted to themselves. The Iran Contra scandal warrants only a handful of mentions. There is a brief mention of the "Star Wars" programs (although, nothing that mentions how absolutely worthless the program was).

There's no mention of the huge national debt that Reagan built up. Nothing about how Reagan stayed silent through the early stages of the AIDS crisis. The Sandinistas certainly don't get a shout-out at the Reagan Library. Or about how Reagan closed many of the nation's mental health facilities, making it impossible for me to go to a local liquor store without at least four crazy homeless people harassing me for change.

Full story at http://www.rawstory.com