Bill, Welcome to the Lake.

Rick, Welcome back, and thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Welcome to the Lake

What made you write a book about Ronald Reagan?

Hello Bev and Rick. Thanks for inviting me to the Lake.

Good afternoon William and Rick and welcome to FDL.

William, I have not had an opportunity to read your book but do have a question (forgive me if you cover this in the book).

But was Reagan really that good an actor to pull off this or was it the combination of PR and myth making machines going into OT to build up Reagan beyond anything rational?

Glad to have you with us at Firedoglake!

I began by researching a book on the impact that corporations were having on American society. But the more that I delved into the topic the more I realized that the Reagan years were a period of emancipation for big business, and his had not gotten nearly enough attention in the media. It seemed that everything being published about Reagan was abject hagiography.

Here I am, a little late! Sorry. The weekend nap ran a little long. My apologies.

Welcome Bill and Rick (and terrific intro). So the first question is: did the Reaganauts know what they were doing — as in, they had a plan to transform American in a certain direction — or were they just horrifically delusional? — or were they just stupid and had no idea that none of their theory made sense in theory and could not possibly work in practice?

You were a newspaper reporter in Newark during the Reagan administration, correct? How did you experience the dawn of Reaganomics? Did you see its toll in your own daily work and life?

Reagan was incredibly adept at reading the lines that were fed to him by the likes of Michael Deaver and other members of his staff, while making it sound genuine and populist. So, yes, it was a an ingenious bit of stagecraft.

Welcome. I abhor Reagan and all he did and the fabricated glorification and mythology. Is it true that Ronnie (married to Jane Wyman) met Nancy when she was brought to him to calm him with oral sex after a petulant actor tantrum?

The Reagan administration was actually an amalgamation of different right-wing interests, each pursuing very directed agendas. For instance, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan was doing Wall Street’s bidding and cared little about social issues. David Stockman focused mainly on reducing the size of government. Ed Meese was interested in empowering law enforcement. It as their combined efforts that produced what we now know as Reaganism.

Thanks so much for being here today, Bill. And thanks for the great intro Rick.

We’ve been working recently on drug policy, and I was surprised to learn that the prison population in the US has quadrupled since Reagan’s war on drugs began. With 5% of the world’s population, we now have 25% of its prisoners.

Were there any corporate/business relationships Reagan had that encouraged this?

One of the reasons California’s in such trouble is that RR got a head start here…

I remember meeting Ronald Reagan when he was Gov. of California. I was working on a graduate paper and our prof, prominent in Republican politics, had arranged a meeting for us with the Gov’s policy people, with the possibility that the big guy himself might join us. We talked with the advisers for a few minutes, and they struck me as the typical cynical manipulators and spinners — not a straight answer among them — about what we expected. But we were shocked when Reagan came into the room and starting chatting. We tried to appear intelligent and ask relevant questions, but it was clear he didn’t have a clue what we were talking about, and his handlers quickly stepped in to divert the questions when it became embarrassing. We all wondered how someone like that could have found his way into the Governor’s office.

Sorry, falling a little bit behind. Actually, Rick, I was just beginning my career as a student journalist in Boston when Reagan was elected and was at the Detroit Free Press when he left office. But I feel that I was able to watch his Revolution unfold in the places that paid a heavy price, namely, Detroit and Newark. Those were two great places to assess the damage wrought by his policies.

The right-wing reviews of your book are really, really, really dumb. I mean dumber than the usual right-wing responses, which can get pretty dumb.

What do you make of this hero worship of Reagan on the right? Where do you think it comes from?

There are certainly companies that have made enormous amounts of money within the “prison-industrial complex.” But I think when the Reagan administration launched its repressive law enforcement policies it was mainly driven by ideology — to a large degree Ed Meese’s ideology — and a recognition that stoking fear of crime was a perfect wedge issue to distract the populace from the truly anti-populist intent of the administration’s policies.

Before Reagan, California had among the best of public schools/education. Oh lo, how the mighty have fallen. It is a wonder that this is his legacy, yet people believe the lies.

I’ve always felt that Reagan was as much a front for the Neocons as was the useful idiot, George W. Bush, with Reagan being manipulated behind the scenes by the elder Bush and Jr. by Cheney.

Thank you for writing this, and I look forward to reading it at the earliest opportunity.
The sooner America dispenses with the comforting ‘St. Ronald the Good‘ myth and sees him as the noxious pitchman for right-wing oligarchy that he always was, the better.

;>)

The portion of Dixon’s adults with a bachelor’s degree or better had increased from 9 to 12 percent int he 1970s but then hit a plateau. Only 12.7 percent had finished college in 2000, virtually the same percentage as two decades earlier.”

Whats the national average for a B.A?

I remember one of Reagan’s early targets was the University of California, which Pat Brown and other Govs had helped build into a world class institution. But Reagan came in when Clark Kerr was dealing with the Free Speech Movement, so we were all hippies and anarchists, and I guess the Ed Meese handler piece of Reagan couldn’t handle that. So the first thing they did was try to reduce the UC budget.

Do you see this anti-education, anti-higher learning element in the Reagan movement — and is this where we get the anti-science part of the theology?

“We all wondered how someone like that could have found his way into the Governor’s office.”

For the same reasons that Zaphod Beeblebrox became Galactic President, to steal the most powerful thing in the galaxy and to distract attention away from those who really held power.

There is also the not minor contribution of large numbers of mentally ill driven from institutions on to the street. I don’t have figures at hand but they comprise a large percentage of current jail populations.

Who influenced Reagan’s racial thinking Family, Friends, Hollywood, G.E, Nancy, the GOP?

Rick, Bill, what are the most vehement right wing criticisms? What sets them off the most, and why?

I find it mystifying. I think that right-wingers have just come to view Reagan as their hero, right or wrong, and any attack on his beliefs, whatever its merits, is seen as an attack on their ideology. He was a likeable man, and I think people have this idea that he showed great courage facing down the Soviets in John Wayne-fasion. Just as Reagan disdained nuance and complex realities — that is to say, truth — so do many Americans.

About 70 percent of adults don’t have a bachelors degree, I believe. It’s something not a lot of folks know. Politicians, including Democrats, do very little to speak for these folks.

Why did Reagan lie so much about race that Caddy driving welfare mom from Chicago story for example.
Why did Reagan decide to speak in code Welfare means Black did he come up with that on his own if not wjo started that?

Since 1981 we have witnessed a weakening or outright dismantling of so much progress we had made in the public sector. Just look at the state of our infrastructure.

I haven’t finished this yet but it’s reminding me painfully of people at that time saying idiotic things that Reagan had said, and me just being speechless.
I couldn’t figure out how voodoo economics ever made sense to anyone who had to balance a checkbook. How did they pull that one over on so many people?

You don’t do foreign policy in your book. Other recent Reagan books, like Froomkins and Mann’s, give him high marks for risking peace with the U.S.S.R.–though he achieved it by plainly abandoning “conservatism.” What kind of credit do you think he deserves?

Thanks for being here, and thanks for being at the Freep back in what I recall as very dark days here in Michigan.

It wasn’t enough to deal with the backwardness of the Reagan years, but to experience it in the wake of the floundering of a monolithic giant like the car industry? Ugh.

I don’t think the elder Bush had a lot of influence in the administration.

Who told Reagan free unregulated enterprise was better than FDR socialism? Why did Reagan never look at declining middle class and wonder what was wrong with his policies?

A number that is likely to decline, given the economy, the permanent loss of middle class jobs, the skyrocketing of education costs and the eduction cuts imposed by (mostly Republican) state legislatures, scything away at once great land grant universities and their urban cousins.

I don’t have that percentage handy.

My answers would be 1) GE, and 2) it never occurred to him to ask.

You know, right there is one of the key reasons Michigan became the home of so-called “Reagan Democrats.” A substantive number of them were blue collar workers — a big swath of the UAW still is — and they believed what this television spokesperson-cum-president told them.

What about you, Mr. Kleinknecht, having lived here in Michigan; would you say this was a factor in moving blue collar votes to the right?

Bill, in researching the book, did you come across a lot of folks who were originally devoted followers but who had come to realize it was all a mirage? Or are they all still mostly true believers? What have we/they learned?

I think there was cleary distrust of the liberals dominating higher education, but I think the cuts in higher education funding mainly part of an overall shifting of the nation’s resources out of the public sector and into tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The only elements of the public sector that the Reaganites wanted funded in any meaningful way were law enforcement and defense.

Why was Reagan the big inspiration for Newt, Bush and even McCain decades later the last creator or rather seller of GOP ideas.
Why hasn’t the GOP gotten new ideas since then? Jon McCain tried to sell himself as a foot solder in the Reagan Revolution some young voters this election were not even born then.
Grandpa talking about the good old days doesn’t win you young votes. Why can’t the GOP even now come out of his shadow?
Where are the GOP idea men who gave Reagan something new to say? I mean talking in Racial code alone was evil genius.
Setting Whites against the poor (blacks) more racial code more evil genius and the press never caught on?

Milton Friedman and his cabal sold Reagan on the wonders of the free market myth. i don’t believe he needed a whole lot of persuading.

Bill, you do a great job in the book flushing out some very influential behind-the-scenes players in laundering the business agenda in the Reagan White House. Who were some of your favorites, and how did you run across them and their role?

I don’t think Reagan was personally racist but had a glaring disdain for the interests of the poor and was willing to use racial imagery — i.e., the welfare queen — as a wedge issue to achieve his larger goals.

Just try to tell a rightwinger about Reagan’s tax increases, though — they go wild!

Thanks for this wonderful book. Deconstructing the Reagan myth is a really important part of what Americans need to accomplish in the 21st century. What odds, do you think, are there of de-naming National Airport, for instance? And how goes Norquist’s Reagan Legacy Project, with its goal of naming something in every county for St Ronnie?

Reagan began his 1981 presidential campaign with a speech on state’s rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in the 1960s. The goal there was quite clearly to bring Southern Democrats into the Reagan camp, a continuation of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. It was politics at its most cynical level, more than ideology.

Towards the end of his life or when he wasn’t senile did Reagan ever question what he had done to America?

Yeah but where were the facts or did Milt make that up too?

The guy grew up poor what was his problem?

He did, however, address his own African-American Secretary of HUD as “Mr Mayor” at one reception. I don’t think he had much concern for ‘those people’ except as they were seen by his co-ideologists as stealing from society’s productive class.

He had a very unnuanced view of the world. When he was a New Deal Democrat, he bought the entire program. When he later became a right-winger, that was his ideology, right or wrong. He was not able to deal with complexities.

Just wondering what Mr. Kleinknecht thought of the Reagan programs from PBS’s American Experience U.S. Presidents series?

How do you connect your history to the larger histories of neoliberalism (e.g. Kees van der Pijl’s Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq, or Harry Shutt’s The Trouble With Capitalism) as an era in which corporate demands for profit far outstripped the global economy’s ability to produce, and so there was a vast decline in the fortunes of all but the richest?

William, thank you for being here.

Have you any speculation that you might share with us, any thoughts you might have, regarding our current President’s admiration for Ronald Reagan?

I think Barack Obama quite as great an actor as Ronald Reagan, indeed, in some ways he is even more powerful and successful.

DW

We live in a technological age of rapid advancement without increases in tech and worker efficiency would Reagan’s policies have just resulted in a speculative bubble and collapsed.
I’m wondering that as we cut education funding the rapid pace of inventions and worker efficiency will slow and then we will have one last speculative bubble.

I think a lot of blue-collar workers were losing their jobs in the 1970s, looking for scapegoats, and were highly susceptible to a demagogue stoking their anger about their tax dollars going to welfare queens and other malingerers. It was highly effective politics. What the blue-collar types didn’t realize was that the resulting policies were geared toward empowering corporations and lining the pockets of the rich, not helping people like themselves. They were duped.

The Bubble to end all Bubbles?

The Great Bubble.

What the blue-collar types didn’t realize was that the resulting policies were geared toward empowering corporations and lining the pockets of the rich, not helping people like themselves. They were duped.

This hasn’t changed at all – tea party politics is just the latest incarnation.

Reagan was an inspiration for Newt and McCain because he was so effective. He ended a half-century of liberal domination of American politics. You ask why the GOP has not had new ideas. They never really had a program. It was the absence of a program. Cut taxes, cut spending, and let the market solve all of our problems. That’s not a program. And the result has been disasterous. In the aftermath of the financial meltdown, McCain was actually advocating further deregulation of the financial sector!

The wholesale shift of public works to private profits was certainly effective, as you point out. It was never outrageous to people that some things just should not be turned to profit-making ventures, like education, law-enforcement, infrastructure, to name a few of the egregious examples.

I was working in a place where rich people came during the Reagan years. I was SO Depressed when he was elected the 2nd time, and they could not get over their good fortune. The second term of Bush the Younger was even more depressing.

I’d have to think about that one.

I like this question and would like to ask it of Bill too!

Given the world that Reagan has left us, if they renamed Reagan Airport, it would probably be named American Express Airport or Tommy Hilfiger Airport. In New York, we had a venue called Tommy Hilfiger at Jones Beach Theater.

The Family recruits people like Mark Sanford, John Ensign into their Christian organization. They seem to recruit not to bright men with charisma like Reagan unlike Reagan they can’t seem to keep in in their pants. They also seem to have a connection to Reagan. Was he a member?

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan said about the Fellowship, “I wish I could say more about it, but it’s working precisely because it is private.”[4

5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)#Congressman_Chip_Pickering

Controversial leadership model

Jeff Sharlet and Andrea Mitchell have described Fellowship leader Doug Coe as preaching a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers.[39][40] In one videotaped lecture series in 1989, Coe said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)#Controversial_leadership_model

Hitler was also a dumb guy who could sell people stuff with fear and hate I wonder if thats who the Family recruits?
Dumb racist, conservatives with charisma looking to raise the rich by destroying the middle class keep down Women, Gay, Dark People etc.

I’ve never seen any evidence of any misgivings. On the other hand, I think his mental decline was already underway in his latter years in the White House.

The last bubble that sinks America and makes us England, France or even lower.

Didn’t see it, unfortunately.

That’s interesting. I’ve heard speculation that prison privatizers were stoking it (among other neoliberal grabs on the public sphere at the time) but Ed Meese’s ideology makes just as much sense.

I think a lot of blue-collar workers were losing their jobs in the 1970s, looking for scapegoats, and were highly susceptible to a demagogue stoking their anger about their tax dollars going to welfare queens and other malingerers.

It all sounds so very familiar…

It’s a fascinating proposition, but one that I am not fully qualified to address.

Agreed what level of failure by the GOP is needed before they are forced to reevaluate their policies and come up with new ones good or evil new ones.
Its like the GOP lost all their creativity after Reagan.

Who can imagine … how low we can … and will … go?

The Great Awakening is now upon us …

Let the yawning commence.

DW

Renaming it “Reagan Airport” grinds people to this day.

It would be an appropriate “f-you” to Reagan and his legacy builders to rename it American Express airport. I think most of those it seriously bothers would be happier with that. Which is a dark irony.

I think Obama admires Reagan’s communication skills and his ability to inspire the nation. Remember that Reagan expressed admiration for FDR even in the 1980s. But given that so many of Obama’s supporters were counting on him to turn back the clock on the Reagan Revolution, I think it was a mistake for him to hold Reagan up as someone to admire.

How much influence did Reagan’s wives have on him? What was Nancy’s role in changing Reagan from an FDR person to the Reagan we know today?

Was Reagan aware his School for the America’s Grads were raping and killing American Nuns? If not who kept that from Reagan? Would it have made any difference to him if he had known?

Well, fortunately, Obama has not disappointed his supporters in any other ways.

Frankly, William, I think Obama is paying Reagan great tribute every day, and is honorably carrying on many of the Reagan “traditions” which as being discussed here, today.

DW

Our economy is increasingly based on specualtion and paper entrepreurism as opposed to investment in real business enterprises that create jobs. Reagan’s policies (i.e., financial deregulation) greatly fueled that trend rather than trying to reverse it by investing in education, infrastructure, scientic research and other endeavors that would allow us to compete in the global marketplace. Why is China educating more scientists and outpacing us in developing green technology?

Agreed Obama beat all the House GOPers in a debate questions not known in advance he’s better than Reagan.
However Obama gives a great speech about healthcare for example and then in private surrenders and cuts deals with the drug industry.
Reagan did a bunch of stuff behind our back but if he said he was going to do something he did try to do it as I recall.
I was in jr high then so my memory maybe faulty.

Jane, the Nation had a big article on private prisons–starting up, and the many problems in the early or mid-90s that was great. I made lots of xerox copies of it and took it around to all the legislators I knew in our state house when they began to consider funding private prisons. I was not successful in stopping them, but I think it was quite instructive on the whole process that was going on at the time to get prisons out of the public realm.

There were lots of problems, TX had been in the lead on doing it, and the record was already mounting of what would go wrong.

I think they were stoking it in the post-Reagan years, but not at the beginning.

Do you think he was in the dark on Iran Contra?

If so, would he have approved of it anyway?

When we ask why the GOP puts forth the ideas that they do, we cannot lose sight of the fact that it is not ideas per se. They are advancing the interests of the corpriations that fill their campaign chests while also paying just enough attention to the prejudices and fears of their constituents to get re-elected. Ideas are beside the point. They are not trying to solve the nation’s problems.

Yes, if a society does not create real wealth, which comes about ONLY through the conversion of resources into tangible things, it all becomes make-believe, and speculative calculation.

In such situations the watchword is, always, “Devil take the hindmost.”

The Reagan “Plan”, neo-liberalism, is the aim and goal of what some people call “the political parties”. BOTH parties. It does not matter which is in power, they are both dedicated to the same end.

DW

Nancy had a big impact on him. Her father, a physician named Loyal Davis, is said to have played a big role in moving his politics to the right.

I think Reagan was clueless about many things that were taking place under his watch but would gladly issue statements white-washing such crimes if asked to do so by his advisers.

The Reagan acolytes remain tremendously embarrassed that his name is on that huge federal office building next the the Old Post Office in DC; it’s the second-largest US building after the Pentagon, and it’s entirely devoted to things like the US trade mission that the Reaganauts would rather see dissolved.

One connection today’s acolytes (like Palin, et al) have to Reagan is his disdain for science and belief in the Apocalyptic. His ‘joke’ about launching the missiles to destroy the USSR prior to a Saturday radio address was much closer to his own personal views than his proposal to ban to Gorbachev to ban all nukes. I think the latter was the product of a decaying mind still focused on the end-times, but approaching it through an entirely different lens.

Yes, if a society does not create real wealth, which comes about ONLY through the conversion of resources into tangible things, it all becomes make-believe, and speculative calculation.

In such situations the watchword is, always, “Devil take the hindmost.”

The Reagan “Plan”, neo-liberalism, is the aim and goal of what some people call “the political parties”. BOTH parties. It does not matter which is in power, they are both dedicated to the same end.

DW

Thus my question about neoliberalism. Thanks DW. Bill, it needs to be addressed. Just blaming Reagan and the Republicans will not suffice when the Democrats are so obviously “in the game.” Didn’t you see any of that in your research?

We may never know.

Its not corporate interest FDR’s policies gave us a great stock market. Its corporate greed Its I want to keep drinking all night I don’t care if I spend the rent money, get hungover etc Now is all that matters.
FDR made America into a healthy country Reagan made us bubble speculation junkies being a junkie long term is not in any corporation’s interest.
America used to make stuff TVs, Computer chips etc now food, entertainment, software, Gambling on bank speculation games are our big exports.

Her adoptive father, actually, a man Nancy adored, and who rescued her mother from itinerant acting and gave Nancy her first sense of security.

When we ask why the GOP puts forth the ideas that they do, we cannot lose sight of the fact that it is not ideas per se. They are advancing the interests of the corpriations

Ok why can’t they come up with new ideas to advance corporate greed its been decades bell bottoms have come and gone out of fashion at least twice I think since then.

Hey, jumping down to the bottom of the comments, has anyone asked about Reagan and quelling UC student protests after the Kent State shootings? Comment on a Daily Kos diary last year:

I’ll never forget how shocked and angry I was when we all heard about it. After campus-wide demonstrations at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA, Governor Ronald Reagan declared martial law throughout the UC system. UCLA was actually occupied by the LAPD, which for all intents and purposes was a paramilitary force at the time. It’s hard for students today to understand how much the cops and the Republicans despised anti-war college students (who were the vast majority at the time). Of course, students hated the cops (i.e. ” the pigs”) in return.

by Ray Blake on Sun May 03, 2009 at 05:18:31 PM PDT

When did Patti took her mom’s name and not her dad’s? Anything to do with rebelling against things like that, did you talk to her and Ron Jr?

Oh, I would ever absolve the Democrats of their share of the blame. The Clinton administration continued so many of Reagan’s policies, such as the termination of welfare as an entitlement, deregulation, repressive law enforcement. The list goes on and on.

Have you uncovered any evidence, or even a strong suggestion, that Ronald Reagan ever thought deeply about much of anything in his life?

Don’t you imagine that if Ronnie could come back for a day, to see what his ‘policies’ brought about, that he would be almost insufferably proud of himself?

DW

Any chance Obama will let guys like you look at Reagan’s papers?

And the sad irony/spectacle of another California Movie Actor Governor is going to complete the mission by ending CalWorks.

Do you think that will be a tipping point in CA?

I think the latter was the product of a decaying mind still focused on the end-times, but approaching it through an entirely different lens.

What were Reagan’s belief’s about the End Times? Much like Reagan’s ideas that is another pillar of GOP philosophy that has not changed despite decades of waiting.

I did not talk to the Reagan children. As for the UC protests it is an interesting sidelight that Ed Meese’s harsh treatment of the arrested protestors as a prosecutor in that county is part of what brought him to Governor Reagan’s attention and ended up with Meese going to work for him in Sacramento.

What would interest you most if you could look at the Reagan papers Bush 2 kept secret?

Does California need another tipping point?

I think he thought very deeply. He was a devoted reader of Reader’s Digest and , later, National Review. I think he gave a lot of thought to public affairs and would bore people to tears with his politcal disserations while he was an actor. But there was something in his psychiology, perhaps his upbringing as the child of a severe alcoholic, that caused his thinking to be very one-dimensional. He could not see gray areas. And I think he did not have the intellectual aptitude to understand highly complex issue.

Biggest economy in America bigger than many countries so yes. But what California industries has Arnold destroyed that can tip over the rest of America? Is Obama doing anything to help?

Not fully informed on that issue.

I would really like to know more about the contacts that corporate leaders had with members of the Reagan administration, particularly defense contractors.

Hitler had a distant father kind of abusive. I think having a drunk shiftless father might have had the same effect on Reagan.
Lying is a survival skill for children raised like that.
Rush and Newt I must remember to look at their backgrounds sometime. Authoritarian personalty types do have security issues. Being tough when you know you can’t get hurt I think is a compensatory behavior.

Same here I want Obama to open Reagan’s files:)

Reagan had many traits that are often found in the adult children of alcoholics. He would not let people get close to him. He had no close friends but liked make himself the center of attention in superficial ways in order to fit in.

Thats a theme I hope you explored in your book. I’ll be asking the library about it soon.

I am certain that you are correct, and suspect that it was precisely these characteristics that made him valuable to those who perceived what might be done with him.

I doubt that he ever understood how he was used. But was proud of himself for what he perceived to be “his” accomplishments. Bush II, though nastier as a person, was and is, of the same ilk, lacking curiosity and given to relatively simple, one-dimensional, uncritical thinking.

DW

I have another question about Reagan as gov of CA. I think he screwed the justice system via traffic tickets. I think about that all the time as I watch military commissions and the kind of Calvinball law we get when we create Constitution-free legal zones. I’m looking at Chapter 18 of Fight Your Ticket (CA 6th ed), and author David Brown follows the devolving trail to “remove from traffic court any constitutional protections that stand in the way of a more ‘efficient’ production of revenue”: 1968 new category “infractions” — not a felony, not a misdemeanor = no jury trial, no court-appointed lawyer, trial by non-judge, no double jeopardy, no Miranda (hey Jane) even though CA law defines a traffic stop as an “arrest,” and no pay for prosecuting lawyer means the judge in effect becomes the prosecutor, parking ticket = automatic conviction which you have to appeal not contest… this is so hard to jive with that famous quote of Reagan’s (which speech?) about how Americans make their government to serve them, and if it doesn’t work they can make it all over again. That’s exactly the opposite of a court without a jury.

Sorry I’m late to the party.

I understand that Nancy’s father had a large influence on Reagan’s shift in politics. Was that more about her father’s strength of character or Reagan’s weakness?

Which may be why Obama, who does think with pragmatic expediency uppermost in mind, may well be the most dangerous of the three.

DW

And yet you could not say that Reagan was unintelligent. He had an amazing memory for small bits of information and was able to present long speeches brilliantly. He even acquitted himself well in presidential debates. Intelligence functions on many different levels, which is the problem with standardized tests, in my view.

Probably the latter. Reagan was highly malleable, particularly when shifting his ideology was in keeing with his own personal interests. He was susceptible to anti-government rhetoric because he thought that the IRS was taking to much of his earnings as an actor at a time when his career was in decline he had money troubles.

If you can’t analyze information what good is memory Reagan would have made a great secretary, newscaster, or actor. Being good with people can get you elected but we need intelligent leaders Bush was good with people maybe he could work in human resources and buy people a beer after he fired them.

Agreed. However, was the nation really well-served by Reagan?

I am convinced that a society more concerned with appearance than with substance, with the myth rather than the reality, is easy-pickings for the clever, who are not just on wall street, Madison Avenue types who manufacture “reality” and “demand”.

The role of an uncritical media must not be left out of your tale, either.

I thank you, William, for answering my questions and braving the fierce denizens resident at FDL.

DW

As we come to the end of this Book Salon,

Bill, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and Ronald Reagan.

Rick, Thank you very much for Hosting today’s great Book Salon.

Thanks all.

My thanks, Rick, to you as well.

DW

Good point Authoritarians always blame others not themselves when they fail. My step nephew screams his video game is a cheater when he losses.

Thank God that finally someone is telling the Truth about “ronnie”. Reagan was crooked as all HELL. Kitty Kelly must be smiling somewhere!

He even acquitted himself well in presidential debates

I thought George Will stole Carter’s debate prep?

Thanks for having me and thanks to everyone else for the great questions.

Good talk please come back even if its just for a small article.

Josh Mull is upstairs!
Rethink Afghanistan: Clinging to Guns and Counterinsurgency

Thanks for coming,
and thanks Rick
and as always, Bev

Thanks to all, great Book Salon.

Reaganism was nothing more than a palatable smiley face fascism.

Honorable Mr. Kleinknecht,

Had some chores to, plan to read your Book, and hope you mentioned the Lady Hypnotist who was very famous in the 1940′s, whose technique was so overwhelming that certain parts of her routine are outlawed from being broadcast because it is certain that a higher than average percentage of the viewing audience would be under her “spell” merely from seeing her routine on television, and whom among her greatest “fans” was an actor named ronald wilson reagan, (a left wing democrat at the time) whom studied her technique’s under her personally etc… and if you did not mention the above in your Current Book, perhaps you could consider researching said information for a future Book.

Eternally Most High God Bless You.

“I would really like to know more about the contacts that corporate leaders had with members of the Reagan administration, particularly defense contractors.”

Yes, I think this is precisely where you should look. In particular, I would look at connections with Hughes — Hughes Aircraft, Hughes Systems, and Hughes Tool. They are all buried now in GM (which bought them) and others which bought pieces of the Hughes empire eventually, but Hughes was the back room that pretty much managed Reagan as Governor, and then repeated things with the Presidency. It is all Government business, except for Hughes Tool which had a major piece of the international and national oil business. “The Tool” owned patents on drilling bits and did not directly lease or sell bits, rather the Tool took ownership of a percentage of oil and gas produced in lieu of royalities. Since the Hughes bit was advanced industry standard for more than 60 years, you can just barely imagine the income generated from sale of Hughes share of oil and gas world-wide.

Problem was, Howard Hughes was nuts — and had been for years. Government, particularly DOD (specifically Air Force) understood this from immediate post WWII period, and rather than deal with it all legally, they inserted management that allowed Howard Hughes to remain the public face of things — but not much more than that. Capital Income went toward building up the Aircraft and Systems pieces of Hughes, which then became the prime contractor for much Air Force, NASA and other DOD and CIA business.

The management of Reagan was much the same as what had been established for the management of Howard Hughes himself. At least in the 60′s it was many of the same Hughes people. I think you will find that many of the California people who came to DC with Reagan have significant Hughes connections in their backgrounds. I doubt if Reagan had more than a sketchy idea of how his “System” was organized…and thus doubt if his papers will reflect all that much. What is key is to identify the persons with dual connections, those who came out of the Hughes network, and then occupied key jobs in Reagan’s administration.

Thanx for the illumination of this dreadful period of American history. Along with Ronnie Rectum we got a delusional first lady who governed her man with astrological advice. We also got the Franklin coverup, Dick Chaney, Piece of Rumshit and the beginning of the end. Reagans term started with treason and went down hill from there. I was working in DC at that time and saw the mentally ill that were turned out onto the streets. For them life became a sink or swim proposition. DC gets cold in wintertime, try living with no resources in this environment. Ronnie Reagan oversaw a very dark period in American history. I really cannot express my contempt for these murdering merciless bastards.

The Carter debate-briefing book was certainly stolen, tho’ probably not by Will, whose role was to play Carter in debate rehearsals, presumably based upon studying the book.

Who can believe that Will is still employed by a major newspaper?