Bush Shares More With Reagan Than Just His Sunny Charm

[AmyStrange]

BUSH SHARES MORE WITH REAGAN THAN JUST HIS SUNNY CHARM
Fri Jun 11, 8:03 PM ET
By Cynthia Tucker

FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ucas/20040612/cm_ucas/bushsharesmorewithreaganthanjusthissunnycharm&cid=1317&ncid=1935
Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) liked a good story. Indeed, he preferred a good story to dreary facts, details or truths. He often repeated supposedly factual anecdotes -- stories of war heroes or welfare queens -- that were largely fact-free.

Speaking to a journalist who fervently believed that, as a child, he had seen Reagan filming a movie in his hometown, Reagan told the man he had never been there. But the president sympathized with the man's errant recollection, according to Reagan biographer Lou Cannon.

"You believed it because you wanted to believe it. There's nothing wrong with that. I do it all the time," Reagan said.

His was a fairy-tale presidency, dedicated to telling the American people what they wanted to hear. It was just what the voters were looking for after four years of Jimmy Carter, who had an annoying way of reminding Americans that the United States had made mistakes, that citizenship requires sacrifice, that might does not make right.

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