BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Sunday, June 06, 2004
RONALD REAGAN, 1911-2004. I
turned on NPR in my car late yesterday afternoon and heard a long
clip of President Reagan giving a speech. I called Mrs. Media Log and
said, "Turn on the TV. I think Reagan just died." Sure
enough, he had.
Reagan was never my guy. But unlike
some liberals, I did not contemplate jumping off the nearest ledge
after he was elected in 1980. I was disgusted enough with Jimmy
Carter that year that I voted for the independent, John Anderson,
which I knew was as good as a vote for Reagan. So I had nothing to
complain about.
I thought Reagan was a bad
president then, and I still do. But he looks better today than he did
during his eight years in office. To the extent that his massive
military build-up helped topple communism, it was a good thing. If
the tax reform that he and Democratic moderates such as then-senator
Bill Bradley shepherded into law had actually held, we'd have a much
better system today. Even the enormous budget deficits melted away
pretty quickly once Bill Clinton pushed through his desperately
needed tax package in 1993. That doesn't mean Reagan's deficits were
good; it just means that they turned out not to be as big a deal as
they seemed at the time.
His darkest legacy is not
Iran-Contra but rather a component of that scandal: his support, both
overt and covert, for the right-wing death squads that fought on
behalf of the pro-US governments of El Salvador and Guatemala and
against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. It was a terrible
thing when the people that the United States was supporting were
implicated in the massacre of nuns, peasants, and other innocent
people. Reagan was never held fully accountable for those atrocities,
and he's certainly not going to be now.
On the other hand, despite his
well-known disengagement from day-to-day details - and, at times,
from reality itself - Reagan exhibited a certain maturity and
judgment that is all too obviously lacking in the White House today.
It is unimaginable that Reagan would have more than 100,000 troops
bogged down in a war we didn't have to fight.
Reagan wouldn't have ignored the
horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime, but he would have used such
time-honored techniques as sanctions, United Nations involvement (not
that he was any fan of the UN), and clandestine efforts to mount a
coup against Saddam. George W. Bush claims to be a Reaganite, but he
misses entirely how flexible and nuanced Reagan could be.
BETTER THAN REAL BOXING. It
hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but one of the more amusing Boston
media stories of recent days is the brawl between Globe boxing
(and football) writer Ron Borges and New York Times freelancer
Mike Katz. Bruce Allen covers it here,
here,
and here.
At one point Allen seems to side with Borges, posting an anonymous
e-mail he received:
Mike Katz may be 5-5 and
old but he is also about 250 pounds and just about the biggest
prick walking the face of the earth. A truly horrible guy who
treats the rest of the media like crap and regularly shoves around
ushers, other writers, etc. In talking to a few buddies who
witnessed the "fight" it was a few seconds long, Katz started it
and Borges had no choice but to defend himself.
However, Allen also links to
this
David Weber story in
yesterday's Herald (check out the "Tale of the Tape" graphic)
in which it's reported that the "enraged" Borges, responding to an
invitation from Katz, "allegedly lunged across the table and hit Katz
across the back of his head with an open-hand slap, knocking his
eyeglasses and beret to the floor." Weber also writes:
Acquaintances of both
writers described Katz as a "short, fat" man in his 60s who walks
with a cane and wears a neck brace because of chronic back
problems. Borges, who played football at the University of
Massachusetts many years ago, is described as being in his 50s and
in much better shape.
Nice! Too bad there's no
video.
posted at 10:53 AM |
1 comments
|
link
1 Comments:
Reagan looks better today? You might want to check out:
http://www.juancole.com/2004_06_01_juancole_archive.html#108654049412748319
and it was RR attorney general, Ed Meese, who said the the lines at the soup kitchens were so long, not because people were poor, but because the food was so good.
I guess the conservatives are right, repeat a lie long enough, and even Dan Kennedy will believe it.
/b
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
