RIP Reagan

Former President Ronald Reagan died today at age 93. As you're bombarded with media "packages" that the networks have had canned for the past 5 years in preparation for this day, remember that he was not the saint current Republicans would like to make him out to be. And this is so true:

Prediction: Reagan is going to be Dubya's virtual running mate.

I'm not yet sure how they'll do it, but you can bet Rove is cooking up ways to imprint the Reagan-Bush II connection on the minds of every U.S. voter. I bet Bush will give at least one more heavily televised pseudo-eulogy linking the "great accomplishments" of Reagan with his own "war on terror."

UPDATE: More perspective from someone who recognizes that Reagan was not the saint some people would have us believe.

See also:

• the Rotten Reagan Biography,
• Whiskey Bar's take and the many thoughtful comments that follow; it's an excellent thumbnail sketch of the parts of the Reagan years you're not likely to see much of on tv today or in the coming days [link via Notes from the (Legal) Underground]
• Europe Recalls Reagan Fondly, Arabs Don't:

  Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said he was sorry that Reagan died without standing trial for 1986 air strikes he ordered that killed Gadhafi's adopted daughter and 36 other people.

  Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air raid in response to a disco bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gadhafi that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people.

  "I express my deep regret because Reagan died before facing justice for his ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the Libyan children," Libya's official JANA news agency quoted Gadhafi as saying Sunday.

  
  
• Reflections from Glorfindel of Gondolin, Musclehead, and Half-Cocked.
• Steve Gilliard's take, including a huge comment thread.
• USA Today: Upbeat Reagan reminded USA to believe in itself. And we all want to feel good, right? Even and especially when we don't deserve to.
• Salon: The Regan legacy by Rick Perlstein
• The Gipper's Dark Side by Charles Taylor
• The rich got richer by James K. Galbraith (on Reagan's "voodoo economics")
• Reagan without sentimentality by Joe Conason: "He told us government was the problem -- and his corruption-plagued administration made sure of it."
• Reagan backers want hero on U.S. currency.
• Still the Teflon President?
• Reagan's funeral guided by the past: a meagre attempt to put all the pomp and circumstance into some kind of context.
• State funeral will feature rare pageantry:

  Rich with military symbolism, state funerals in Europe date back centuries for royalty or such figures as Lord Nelson, the British admiral slain at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

  The founding fathers of the United States didn't have state funerals. Plans to bury George Washington in the U.S. Capitol were set aside, in part because such an interment struck some patriots as too reminiscent of British royal burials in Westminster Abbey.

• Tips on visiting Washington to pay respects to Reagan
• Once a scarlet woman, Nancy is turned into a role model.
• The other side of Reagan: Perspectives from the international press.
• Reagan's Shameful Legacy: Mourn for us, Not the Proto Bush" by Ted Rall
• Let's bury Reaganomics with its founder.

Posted 09:25 PM | Comments (3) | general politics