06-16-2004, 02:26 AM
I hate gross oversimplification as much as I hate misinformation, and both are very evident within this thread.
Ronald Reagan, like all human beings, was a very complex man, and reducing him to the simple statement, "he was the greatest president of all time" is oversimplification. He was both partisan and pratical, resolved yet relenting, a mix of hardline rhetoric mixed with the common sense that he was ingrained with.
Despite our ideological differences, I think I would have liked the Gipper, had I ever met him. In spite of my very serious differences with ideology, I do agree with encomiums about his good spirit, and I think he is a classic example of what the American Dream can still accomplish in the United States today. His ideas may have been wrong, but he fully deserved to be listened to for those ideas, working hard to be where he was. (Obviously, I don't give George W. Bush the same latitude I give Reagan.)
I think the most memorable mistake that has been made these past two weeks is the American's public - and especially pundits- refusal to seperate the personality from the politics. (Read the current Newsweek editorial for more exposition on what this means). Indeed, most of the personal qualities they described him as were right on target: The Great Communicator, The Great Liberator, his straight fowardness, and his uncomparable wit and storytelling are all personal qualites that DO describe him. Yet, to fully encompass him as a person, we must both look at that as well as his political effect on the nation, ranging from his superb leadership (I agree) in the Cold War, to his terrible denials in the Iran-Contra affair and some of his ridiculous trickle-down economic policies. Instead, all I felt this week was conservative pressure by Republicans to further their campaign cause with his death. A particular Republican commercial I heard this week sickened me, because I think it was directly created with the ex-President's Death; "tell Kerry, pessimism never created any jobs." I agree, it could be just coincidence, but it smells like demagoguery to me.
In my opinion, the best lesson we can learn from the late President is the power of using personal experience and balance in the Great Office of the White House. I was impressed, for example, when I learned for the first time sometimes how different his rhetoric and his actions were: he raised taxes, when dogma dicated that he was feverently opposed to big government; he stood strong against the USSR, yet signed Strategic Arms treaties, being at the same time pragmatic while being impassioned. His personal anecdotes, his reliance on what happened in his small world, and his useful application of these life lessons to the larger world is something we'd do well to remember; his abhorrence of mean-spirtedness had better be learned by these candidates before they earn this soon-to-be voter's apathy.
I liked him, and I wish him God-speed to Peter's gate. He, more than any man I've seen yet, showed that ordinary people with principles and common sense, can achieve something great. Yet it would be an insult to his greatness to treat him as a caricature of greatness, rather than the human with imperfections he knew he was.
(By the way, that 98% approval rating is the most incredible bogus I've ever heard. The margin of error, I'd even bet, would be greater than the measly 2% that you felt to invent. Also, I'd also doubt the authenticity of the poll about people's responses to the greatest President of all time; when was it taken? I also doubt that most Americans know about certain things that could make a President great; I hardly knew, for example, that President Polk, an almost forgotten president, added the most land to the United States. Does that make him great?)
Ronald Reagan, like all human beings, was a very complex man, and reducing him to the simple statement, "he was the greatest president of all time" is oversimplification. He was both partisan and pratical, resolved yet relenting, a mix of hardline rhetoric mixed with the common sense that he was ingrained with.
Despite our ideological differences, I think I would have liked the Gipper, had I ever met him. In spite of my very serious differences with ideology, I do agree with encomiums about his good spirit, and I think he is a classic example of what the American Dream can still accomplish in the United States today. His ideas may have been wrong, but he fully deserved to be listened to for those ideas, working hard to be where he was. (Obviously, I don't give George W. Bush the same latitude I give Reagan.)
I think the most memorable mistake that has been made these past two weeks is the American's public - and especially pundits- refusal to seperate the personality from the politics. (Read the current Newsweek editorial for more exposition on what this means). Indeed, most of the personal qualities they described him as were right on target: The Great Communicator, The Great Liberator, his straight fowardness, and his uncomparable wit and storytelling are all personal qualites that DO describe him. Yet, to fully encompass him as a person, we must both look at that as well as his political effect on the nation, ranging from his superb leadership (I agree) in the Cold War, to his terrible denials in the Iran-Contra affair and some of his ridiculous trickle-down economic policies. Instead, all I felt this week was conservative pressure by Republicans to further their campaign cause with his death. A particular Republican commercial I heard this week sickened me, because I think it was directly created with the ex-President's Death; "tell Kerry, pessimism never created any jobs." I agree, it could be just coincidence, but it smells like demagoguery to me.
In my opinion, the best lesson we can learn from the late President is the power of using personal experience and balance in the Great Office of the White House. I was impressed, for example, when I learned for the first time sometimes how different his rhetoric and his actions were: he raised taxes, when dogma dicated that he was feverently opposed to big government; he stood strong against the USSR, yet signed Strategic Arms treaties, being at the same time pragmatic while being impassioned. His personal anecdotes, his reliance on what happened in his small world, and his useful application of these life lessons to the larger world is something we'd do well to remember; his abhorrence of mean-spirtedness had better be learned by these candidates before they earn this soon-to-be voter's apathy.
I liked him, and I wish him God-speed to Peter's gate. He, more than any man I've seen yet, showed that ordinary people with principles and common sense, can achieve something great. Yet it would be an insult to his greatness to treat him as a caricature of greatness, rather than the human with imperfections he knew he was.
(By the way, that 98% approval rating is the most incredible bogus I've ever heard. The margin of error, I'd even bet, would be greater than the measly 2% that you felt to invent. Also, I'd also doubt the authenticity of the poll about people's responses to the greatest President of all time; when was it taken? I also doubt that most Americans know about certain things that could make a President great; I hardly knew, for example, that President Polk, an almost forgotten president, added the most land to the United States. Does that make him great?)
In Hoc Signio Vinces.