Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004
Published June 09, 2004
"Lifeguard" follows Reagan from his youth in the American heartland to the triumph of his "revolution" in 1981. The program traces the origins of Reagan's difficulty forming attachments to his itinerant childhood and a painful episode with his drunken father. The young boy turned to his mother and the teachings of her Fundamentalist church, The Disciples of Christ, which gave him a belief in predestination and a strong sense of good and evil. After the family settled in Dixon, Illinois, Reagan spent his summers working as a lifeguard on the Rock River and was credited with saving seventy-seven people from drowning. "Reagan's subsequent political career can be seen in terms of rescue," notes Edmund Morris. "I think he felt in the late 1970s that he could rescue Jimmy Carter's America from a period of poisonous self-doubt and carry her safely back to shore."
Reagan's anti-communism began in Hollywood where faced down "communist agitators" in the Screen Actors' Guild. After his movie career dried up in the 1950s, he became a corporate spokesman for General Electric and began speaking out against high taxes and big government. His political philosophy set, Ronald Reagan burst on the national scene in 1964 as a spokesman for conservative politics.
His marriage to actress Jane Wyman ended in divorce, but Reagan found the perfect companion in his second wife, actress Nancy Davis, "the other half of the circle," says daughter Patti Davis. According to political adviser Stuart Spencer, Nancy would serve as Reagan's "personnel director" during his political career.
After barely losing the 1976 Republican primary, Reagan triumphed over Jimmy Carter in 1980. He projected optimism and confidence, believing his mission was to restore America's trust in itself. An assassination attempt only seventy days into his presidency elevated him to near-mythic status, but as "Lifeguard" reveals, in 1983, near the end of his first term, Reagan's conservative revolution was threatened by economic recession and a popular revolt against his defense buildup.
.."An American Crusade" focuses on Reagan's battle with the Soviet Union and his resolve to end the Cold War, which the program sees as his principal legacy. Morris calls Reagan's hatred of Soviet communism "the only negative emotion he had in his life," and says Reagan believed that, with the pressure of a defense buildup, he could "bring this hostile totalitarian system to its knees." The program identifies two turning points in the Cold War: Reagan's bold deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, and a hastily called summit with rival Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986, considered a failure at the time.
If the superpower summitry of his second term was the high point in Reagan's presidency, the Iran-Contra affair was its lowest moment. The publi perception that Reagan had traded arms for hostages with terrorists in Iran caused his credibility to plummet. "I went to the White House to buck him up," recalls Ron Reagan. "It was the first time I ever saw him with the wind completely out of his sails."
- Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004
- Published: June 09, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Eric Olsen
- Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
- Eric Olsen's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
My view is perhaps more nuanced.
At the time one of my cousins used to joke his kids would think the president was named "Fucking Reagan."
hey jim:
i am with you on that. but tonight i am saying it with my new blogcritics.org
t shirt that really accentuates my gut.
i got the email below today from
kip addotta....the comedian i think.
Dear Jack,
God bless President Ronald Wilson Reagan!
Thank you Nancy Reagan!
is there some vast right wing comedian conspiracy?
i just thought is was odd.
jack
You and your new Blogcritics shirt rule, Jack E! We need way more ruling Blogcritics shirt wearers.
I'm not sure Dennis Miller and Kip make a vast conspiracy.
Got my BlogCritics mousepad and coffee mug today. They're great! :)
Oh, and Jim: Have you ever said anything positive about any American?
The fact you hate the US AND Reagan further cements my belief that Reagan was a great man, with all the right enemies...
Jack E --
Hmmm... you may have something there... "Accentuate Your Gut" with a BC t-shirt. OK. These are ideas, only ideas.
How about: "What better place to hide your vodka than a Blogcritic's coffee mug?"
OK, I'll stop.
How about:
"Masterbate to cyber-porn? No problem! The BlogCritics mouse pad is mostly white. It will hide ALL evidence of your self-abuse..."
Yeah, that was a little sick. So what? :)
Interesting selection of articles with multiple angles. Good job with the research.
I think the Hitchens analysis was very negative but also very interesting:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2101842
Hitchens was pissing on a grave. Just like he did with Mother Teresa. Just like he'll do with Maggy Thatcher (if his liver holds out that long)...
Come on, though, RJ. What Hitchens said about Mother Theresa was so ballsy and provocative, even if it was cruel. If you find me hilarious, you should worship him. He called her a necrophiliac and had various astute criticisms of her message, ideology, and image. Someone track down the original article, because I'm too lazy.
Hitchens is cruel and picks the worst times to assail our cultural saints, but he's almost always dead-on, as he was when he called The Passion of the Christ "homoerotic, fascist sadomasochism."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096323/
In a time when most writers try so hard to play the middle and have very little of interest to say for fear of being controversial, Hitchens is one of the best at dissecting sacred cows for the truth. I don't agree with many of his political positions lately, but he's a very talented judge of personality and persona.
wow.
Dropping Christopher Hitchens' into casual conversation! This Booey guy really is smart!
Nice work on the compilation, Eric.
random thoughts:
I can't figure out if the current hero worship/airlift to Mt. Olympus is real/justified, political, or just some strange, deep socio-psychological thing Americans are chasing after?
Some consolation that comes with a shared cultural mourning -- and we fear this might be the last biggie NOT related to a 9/11 type of incident?
Is there a feeling of meaning, patriotism, etc. that is not necessarily that related to the reality and deeds of the man himself, but more related to a ubiquitous vapidity in most of our lives?
Is this some form of an implicit antidote to the bad news from Iraq, the loss of anonymous life over there, a subconscious response to the triviality of contemporary life?
To go from watching "The Good Life" and "Fear Factor" to watching a nationally televised wake is quite a shocking juxtaposition, but maybe the interest shows an inherent national need?
And I wonder who could ever garner such a level of attention in the future, ie. is this the last of an obsolete exercise? An end to the social/cultural atmosphere that can even create such a person? Can you imagine another American getting this treatment during our lifetimes? (I couldn't imagine Reagan getting it, but that's another story)
I dunno, but I suspect it might be the last of a soon-to-be extinct national mourning exercise?
Reagan represented a lot of things to people over a variety of 'times' -- 1911-2004 covers quite a number of generations, events, etc. Maybe that's a large part of it.
And there's definitely some 'father figure' thing going on, but I'll leave that analysis to the voodoo experts.
Thanks for the compliments Bob and Shark! Hitchens's view is perfectly valid, but he does seem awfully eager to be the first iconclast to pounce.
Very interesting questions and obsservations Shark - I hadn't thought about the 9/11 angle. I wonder if Bush benefits from the comparison to Reagan - as many have now made explicitly - or if he suffers by comparison. Surely he is not the communicator, nor does he possess the style that Reagan did.
Maybe the enthusiasm Reagan is receiving is a subconscious "you're no Reagan" directed at Bush, but I don't know.
And we really DO need a lot more people buying Blogcritics merchandise. I don't want to pressure any more than I have about donating, but picking up some Blogcritics merch is win-win all the way around. We REALLY need the income one way or another. Thanks.
Ah, pressure.
As for Ray-gun, I am avoiding all of the funeral/tribute hoohah -- let those who wish to do so unite in mourning. I have more important things to do, like watching "Elimidate."
Suffice it to say that I wish no one dead and offer condolences to Nancy and the kids. As for lib commentary, I'm down with Hitch on this one and furious with Ted Rall, who hoped verbally that Ray-gun would be a "crispy-brown" about now. Might Reagan go to Hell? Perhaps. But if there is a possibility that I will end up in heaven, there is a possibility that RWR will as well. The Creator is merciful, and that is a good thing.
i really enjoy the humor or r j elliott, even though i don't always agree.
the comment about the white mouse pad is sick, twisted, perverted and funny as hell. not to mention a great selling point.
jack e. jett
Jack, the boy is as serious as a heart attack. Which he seems to be about to have in regard to the demise of a 93-year-old man who lived too long. What puzzles me is RJ Elliott's continual references to Reagan and urination. Somehow, in his mind, the two go together.
An abomination to progressive politics, the thousands saying goodbye to Reagan reminds one of Franco's funeral in Spain. Such a spectacle only confirms America's love affair with fascism. Burn in hell, Ronnie!
I just wanted to add that Elimidate rules. That's my political statement of the day.
That is all.
"[T]he comment about the white mouse pad is sick, twisted, perverted and funny as hell. not to mention a great selling point."
Thanks, JEJ! Sick, twisted, perverted bastards like myself become fully-erect after garnering such praise.
Oh, shit. I blew a premature load again! Darn it... [wipes self with mouse pad]
Heh... ;-P
"What puzzles me is RJ Elliott's continual references to Reagan and urination. Somehow, in his mind, the two go together."
Didn't Reagan have an enlarged prostate?
Anyway, I'm just glad MD is still reading my comments, golden-shower references and all... :-P
Thanks for the excellent article on Reagan, Eric.
More than can be said for some of the comments. Almost hesitate to join such a crowd.
I didn't like many of Reagan's policies but respected his ability. He at least knew how to be president, which is more than can be said about some.
One comment in the article is a little strange: "The young boy turned to his mother and the teachings of her Fundamentalist church, The Disciples of Christ, which gave him a belief in predestination and a strong sense of good and evil." The Disciples of Christ do not believe in predestination. They do believe in good and evil.
Sincerely,
Roy Davison
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/16393)
Fuck Rotten Ronnie, he presented a smiling face of terror during the 80s, while he was directly responsible for the murder, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands around the world, while looting the 'murrican treasury (remember the Saving and Loan bail-out of the Bush boys?)
Never mind the incipient and daily threat of casual nuclear war.
Y'know, it seems I can't say "fuck Ronald Reagan" enough to relieve two decades of pent-up stress.