The passing of an American president is an historical event well-worth much of the coverage we have seen this last week. President Ronald Reagan meant a great deal to all Americans whether they accept that inevitable reality of history or not. Besides, how often do we get the chance to see a state funeral plastered all over the networks, cable news outlets and C-SPAN ... 24 hours a day no less?
I would say the passing of our nation’s 40th president certainly rates at least 85 percent of the attention it is getting. Although I would like to have been able to pick up my mail from the retail counter of the Post Office on Friday before it is “returned to sender.” Hold it for me would you fellas? I am easily distracted by life’s minutiae and even though it is mostly bills, junk mail, creditor threats and a few back issues of the German “art” magazine Großformatig Vierzigerinnen, I should still rummage through it.
Back on track, now.
This is not the time for partisanship or so I’ve heard from people who were clearly big, big fans of R-squared before he passed on. But I agree with them. The time for disrespectful displays toward a great man by politicians who simply cannot stand the fact that a national treasure has passed into the hereafter is not now. That time will come when President Clinton dies, I’m sure.
It is also not the time for tasteless jokes like this one left on the newsroom voicemail system: Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are on a lifeboat full of people when it starts to sink. President Carter stands up and says, “Save the women and children! Save the women and children!” President Nixon says, “Screw the women and children!” Then President Reagan stands up and says, “Well, that won’t be necessary Richard, Congress and I pretty much took care of that already.”
Now, what kind of message does this send to the world? If this column didn’t run today, Saturday, the day after the officially-sanctioned day of mourning for the second or third greatest American president of the 20th century – maybe fourth – then I wouldn’t have even dared think that joke let alone repeat it in print. But we are grown-ups and in order to vilify, we must sometimes testify, mustn’t we?
Let me tell you a little something I know I’m pretty sure I believe about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan never intentionally screwed over women, children or anybody while in office. I believe with all of my canned ham-sized heart that if Ronald Reagan screwed over anybody, it was largely unintentional and can probably be blamed on his early foray into Democratness. I know I believe that Ronald Reagan was a kind man, a good man who believed in the greatness of America with the kind of single-minded fervor usually held by people who were too young to serve in World War I and too old to serve in World War II in a combat capacity.
And just as the purveyor of that joke should be largely if not wholly ashamed of himself, so too should the people who remind us that by the end of Reagan’s two terms, 138 administration officials from the EPA, HUD, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon had been convicted, indicted or been made the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or other official criminal violations, according to journalist Haynes Johnson in his 1991 book “Sleepwalking Through History.”
And shame on Joe Conason of Salon.com for reminding us at this mournful time of otherwise low synaptic activity “that HUD Secretary Sam Pierce took the Fifth Amendment when called to testify about the looting of his agency – the first cabinet official to seek that constitutional protection since the Teapot Dome scandal.”
And why bring up that Attorney General Edwin Meese was burned in the Wedtech contracting scandal or that Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger bit it in Iran-contra (Conason).
A pox on he who reminds us about the time back in 1981 when Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers, members of the same union, PATCO, that had supported Reagan for president over Jimmy Carter only nine months prior. He then banned them for life from being rehired by the FAA ... FOR LIFE! This action did one thing described two different ways: If you work, it undermined the rights of working men and women and if your business is business, it restored flexibility to hiring practices (Time, Newsweek).
Tasteless also at this time would be to remind anyone that the covert backing and CIA training of radical Islamist mujahideen guerrillas (including Osama bin Laden) against the Soviets in 1979 (a good thing on the face of it) led to the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda after Afghanistan was abandoned wholesale by a short-sighted United States as soon as the Soviets left.
When you paint with such big strokes, you’re bound to sell arms to Iran and give the money to the Contra in ... anybody? anybody? ... Nicaragua in direct opposition to Congress or as most Americans call it, breaking the law. BIG PICTURE, people. Big picture.
But just as ashamed should be the people who mythologize Ronald Reagan by insisting that his face be placed on half the dimes and the $10 bill replacing Founding Father, first Secretary of the Treasury, creator of the American economic system and second place duelist Alexander Hamilton. C’mon, man, the man who single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union, which was nowhere near crumbling before 1980 doesn’t need anything so paltry as his face on currency. At least he doesn’t when ...
There has been serious talk from fanciful folk with imaginations like children that Ronald Reagan’s head should be squeezed on to Mount Rushmore, a feat that is not only physically and geologically impossible, but artistic vandalism.
No, now is not the time to bring reality into sharp focus. Leave that until Monday.
n Next Storytellers at Barley’s will be June 23. Poets and tellers of stories welcome for what I can guarantee is the most interesting night of the week in Council Bluffs. Free admission, reasonably-priced nachos, A/C and love!
