Reagan, Bush and perception

Recently, PBS aired a documentary on "American Experience" that assessed the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Since I have previously criticized PBS for its often partisan reporting, I felt it was appropriate to take time to acknowledge that this two-part program (called simply "Reagan") was an honest, inspiring portrait of the most important presidency of the past 60 years.

But more than the program itself, I wanted to reflect on Reagan and what we learn about leadership by studying his example. Once again, and perhaps more clearly than ever, I was impressed by Reagan's persistence of vision. He truly was one of the few giant figures on the political landscape in the second half of the 20th century, possibly because of his advanced age, which meant that in some measure he was a carryover from the earlier era when politicians stood for principles instead of for the camera (ironic, in light of Ronnie's Hollywood background).

When Reagan was first elected, I was a youngish hippie type, 25 years old, smart as hell, and condescending to a fault (oh wait a minute, that goes without saying when it comes to condescension, doesn't it?). I had no use for Reagan's policies at the time, being convinced that he would lead us into war (His 1984 joke: "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.") and of course I bought into the common liberal notion that the man was an intellectual lightweight who was being led by the nose a la Bonzo the trained monkey.

But nonetheless, I had a hard time disliking the man, and I slowly learned to respect his gift for communicating his vision with humor, strength, self-deprecation and assuredness. When in the year or so after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down, and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed, I decided it was time for me to reassess his policies as well. You could not mistake the glad tidings of freedom for anything else, and no one else had cared enough about those unfortunates behind the Iron Curtain to do anything about freeing them (the pope being an exception, but of course he spoke as a victim of the Iron Curtain himself, one who through fate and fortune had gotten over the wall). Gorbachev also was a lucky ally in the transformation of the "evil empire," but again, without Reagan's much maligned and deeply doubted policies, there would have been no "necessity" for the fall of the empire. It "might" have happened, but it would have been luck and happenstance, whereas under Reagan's watch, it happened because he WILLED it to happen.

That is the difference between a leader of the early 20th century and one of the late 20th century or early 21st. Nowadays, we are not used to strong-willed leaders, and they frighten us a little bit (read a whole lot). But yet still on occasion a phantom memory of the impulse to leadership will make us feel a twitch like the poor fellow who has had his leg amputated but still needs to scratch. It is that belief in leadership, I think, which has given us the presidency of George W. Bush, and perhaps the modern fear of leadership which has resulted in Bush being subject to the same kind of attacks that were used against Reagan.

The parallels between Bush and Reagan have been noted before, but I thought they were quite clear after seeing the biography of Reagan on PBS, and what was most striking was how badly maligned Reagan was during his own presidency for the same supposed flaws that are imputed to President Bush.

Indeed, I believe that if you compare the reactions of the liberal media elite (to borrow a phrase from author Bernard Goldberg) to Reagan and Bush, you will find almost no difference. In each case, there is a persistent campaign to portray the president as a moron who can't think on his own (Ronnie had his Nancy, and W has his Cheney), but who at the same time aspires to dictatorial power (Iran-Contragate and torture-spygate).

Unfortunately, we can't skip ahead 20 or 25 years to see how incipient history will be judging George W., but it would certainly not surprise me if something happened the year after his term ends that proves him to have been a visionary, too, just as the Berlin Wall validated all of Reagan's "right-wing kook" ideas. It turns out that right-wing kooks can actually free men and women from political enslavement while feel-good kumbayah-singers can do nothing more than try to convince us that if we change our way of thinking (and give up our dependence on violence, blah blah blah) it won't hurt so bad when we all get blown up by terrorists, communists or whomever.

But I digress.

The question is whether we can learn from our history of being wrong in our judgments of great historical figures (and here we have to include Lincoln, Churchill and many others) and step back from our tendency to be tendentious in our thinking. I suppose a lot of us never do acknowledge our mistaken judgments, but they pile up behind us like pedestrians behind the car of a blind driver nonetheless. It would seem prudent, therefore, for citizens to occasionally give their leaders a benefit of the doubt. Just how exactly do we think a whiny Greek chorus of one-liners and insults is going to change history, after all? The only change in history that all the histrionic critics of Reagan brought about is that now there is a big asterisk after their names that says, "Reagan was right, and they were wrong."

I understood that unconsciously, I suppose, whenever I cheered one of Reagan's great speeches exhorting the world to heed its better angels or when I let him bring me to tears during his tribute to the Challenger astronauts. No, I didn't understand the president's war in El Salvador and Nicaragua. No, I didn't understand the need for a Space Defense Initiative. No I didn't understand the need for tax cuts. But I did have a recognition of the genius of the American people, and I realized that Reagan was our leader, for better or worse.

I also had to acknowledge that those were difficult times with no easy answers, and that either fate or heaven had thrust this former actor into the halls of power. And I had to acknowledge that he was likable, kind, and genuine, no matter how much I disliked his policies. And now 25 years later, we can read the letters and other writings of Reagan and see that he was not a moron, he was not a stooge, but rather a man of consistent character and deep thought who left us a much better legacy than we deserved.

Prudence would seem to encourage anyone with a serious interest in politics today to likewise find a little middle ground in their critical assessment of George W. Bush. Otherwise, you may find yourself on the ash heap of history along with all the brilliant liberal thinkers who congratulated themselves in 1980 on their good luck that the Republicans had nominated a "true believer" who would never waiver and thus could not maneuver in the modern political arena where vacillation is considered the best defense against the lions or opportunity and insult. What these great thinkers had not counted on, was that a certain heroic stature was still possible to a man or woman who adopted a fighting posture instead of running for cover.

George Bush is not quite as determined as Reagan, probably, but he still shows a fortitude that sets him far apart from other modern politicians (Clinton being the exemplar) who say what they think we want to hear, and adjust or moderate when they get wind of any opposition. And yes, he has his weaknesses such as overspending, but this too is a similarity with Reagan who decided to overspend on defense because he knew he could and he knew the Soviet Union could not. So we built up the national debt, and built down the international armory, not a bad tradeoff.

Bush's war against terror is a riskier proposition probably, partly because he is the Paul Revere in that war, unlike President Reagan, who was George Washington at Yorktown. It is relatively easy to accept the sword of surrender from your enemy. It is harder by far to be the first in line to shout "the British are coming" since lots of people would rather not fight the British ("They never bothered me or my family!") or anyone else. Bush, with just as much urgency as Revere, is riding his horse at full gallop to sound the alarm. Some along the road take up their arms and follow him, but many others just retreat into their comfortable houses, pull back the shutters, lock the doors and feel safe.

That is where we are as a nation now, divided in the early years of the war on terror between those who seek the comfort of what was and those who spurn that comfort in order to ensure any kind of a future at all. It is profoundly worrisome to look where Bush is pointing. If there is any chance to see the shadow of a peace-loving Islamic terrorist in that fog ahead of us, then by God someone will see that peaceful terrorist and try to get us to shake his hand. Meanwhile, the president's vision of a murderous brutal enemy does not waiver, and he is either right or wrong, but like Reagan he will not be deterred.