Liberal Bouquets for Dead Conservatives The effort to build up conservatives of the past is little more than a feint to tear down the conservatives of the present.
The only good conservative is a dead conservative.
That, in a nutshell, describes the age-old tradition of liberals suddenly discovering that once-reviled conservatives were OK after all. It’s just we-the-living who are hateful ogres, troglodytes, and mopers.
Over the last decade or so, as the giants of the founding generation of modern American conservatism have died, each has been rehabilitated into a gentleman-statesman of a bygone era of conservative decency and open-mindedness.
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Barry Goldwater was the first. A few years ago his liberal granddaughter produced a documentary in which nearly all of the testimonials were from prominent liberals like Hillary Clinton and James Carville. Almost overnight, the man whom LBJ cast as a hate-filled demagogue who would condemn the world to nuclear war became an avuncular and sage grandfather type. Down the memory hole went one of the most despicable campaigns of political demonization in American history. Even Sarah Palin hasn’t been subjected to an ad in the New York Times signed by more than 1,000 psychiatrists claiming she’s too crazy to be president (though I don’t want to give anybody any ideas).
Then there was William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, the magazine I call home. For more than four decades, Buckley was subjected to condemnation for his alleged extremism. Jack Paar (the Johnny Carson/Jay Leno of his day for you youngsters) was among the first of many to try to paint Buckley as a Nazi. Now, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times book review section, who is writing a biography of Buckley, insists that Bill’s life mission was to make liberalism better.
But it’s Ronald Reagan who really stands out. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Gipper is enjoying yet another status upgrade among liberals. Barack Obama took a Reagan biography with him on his vacation. A slew of liberals and mainstream journalists (but I repeat myself) complimented Obama’s State of the Union address as “Reaganesque.” Time magazine recently featured the cover story “Why Obama (Hearts) Reagan.” Meanwhile, the usual suspects are rewriting the same columns about how Reagan was a pragmatist who couldn’t run for president today because he was too nice, too reasonable, too (shudder) liberal for today’s Republican party.
Now, on the one hand, there’s something wonderful about the overflowing of love for Reagan. When presidents leave office or die, their partisan affiliation fades and, for the great ones, eventually withers away. Reagan was a truly great president, one of the greatest according to even liberal historians like the late John Patrick Diggins. As you can tell from the gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth from the far Left, the lionization of Reagan is a great triumph for the Right, and conservatives should welcome more of it.
On the other hand, what is not welcome is an almost Soviet airbrushing of the past to serve liberalism’s current agenda. For starters, if liberals are going to celebrate Reagan, they might try to account for the fact that they fought his every move, alternating between derision and slander in the process. As Steven Hayward, author of the two-volume history The Age of Reagan, asks in the current National Review, “Who can forget the relentless scorn heaped on Reagan for the ‘evil empire’ speech and the Strategic Defense Initiative?” Hayward notes that historian Henry Steele Commager said the “evil empire” speech “was the worst presidential speech in American history, and I’ve read them all.”
The point isn’t that liberals were wrong to oppose every Reagan policy. But what they seem to ignore is that those policies were the products of a political philosophy. Sure, he made pragmatic compromises, but he started from a philosophical position that the self-anointed smart set considered not just wrong, but evil or stupid or both. The Media Research Center has issued a lengthy report chronicling countless journalistic examples, but my favorite comes from Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in London, which in 1982 held a vote for the most hated people of all time. The winners: Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Dracula.
While the encomiums to Reagan & Co. are welcome, the reality is that very little has changed. As we saw in the wake of the Tucson shootings, so much of the effort to build up conservatives of the past is little more than a feint to tear down the conservatives of the present. It’s an old game. For instance, in 1980, quirky New Republic writer Henry Fairlie wrote an essay for the Washington Post in which he lamented the rise of Reagan, “the most radical activist of them all.” The title of his essay: “If Reagan Only Were Another Coolidge . . . ”
Even then, the only good conservative was a dead conservative.
I suppose some might counter by saying the same occured with many Republicans vis-a-vis FDR. Afterall, the Gipper himself told George Will once that he considered himself an FDR Conservative. But for those over 40, it doesn't take much to remember the vitriol directed at Ronald Reagan during his time as President.
I can also remember the same vitriol directed at William Buckley. Buckley did have some freinds on the Left (I remember him and the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith were good friends as well as frequent debating opponents). But, overall the Left detests anyone who challanges thier political hegemony. From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (aka the Democratic Party at Prayer) to Sam Donaldson, to Tip O'Niel the left directed an assault on Reagan that went even beyond what they subjected Nixon to.
Reagan was awful. He and his wife oozed Calvinist haughtiness, i.e., if you have "made it," it's evidence that you deserved to make it, and if you haven't made it, well . . . . Worse, he won the Cold War by engaging the Soviet Union in a game of chicken -- while driving our car. Not to mention "I guess it was arms for hostages, since everyone seems to think it looked like arms for hostages."
I'll take George H.W. Bush's patrician "one must be good to 'the help'" anytime.
'On the other hand, what is not welcome is an almost Soviet airbrushing of the past to serve liberalism’s current agenda.' This exactly what I thought when I saw the cover of Time Magazine it reminded me too much of the photos of Lenin with Trotsky removed and Stalin added. (Also Coolidge was a great Conservative worthy of any modern conservatives attention.)
I was blessed to have had the opportunity to cast my very first vote for Dutch.
"Peace through superior firepower"
"Trust, but verify"
"we begin bombing in five minutes"
"you and I have a rendezvous with destiny"
And of course, his "nine most terrifying words" quote.
I can certainly see why the Liberals of today identify with the man so closely!
Well when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were compared to Hitler and Dracula they were in good company.
Matthew 12:24
But when the Pharisees heard [it], they said, This [fellow] doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
Didn't Reagan himself turn JFK into some sort of supply-side Cold War hero? Not quite consistent with the commentary you read in the old NR's from the 1961-1963 period.
And even the hateful Clintons are being lionized now by some conservatives as a pragmatic centrist with a populist feel as a means of creating an unfavorable comparison with the haughty patrician partisan left-winger Barack Obama.
Granted that conservatives don't have the same control over the mainstream media that liberals do so the double-talk isn't as visible.
You either are too young too remember, or are getting too old to remember clearly. ;)
Reagan was all about being able to move up the "social" and economic ladders. His beliefs in the human intellect and imagination drove his policies to remove barriers for people.
Though I disagree with your assessment, I'll speak to you comment that he was playing "chicken" with the Soviets.
This "game" was played by every President with the USSR. Some were better at international relations (Reagan) than others (Kennedy). On the up side, mutually assured destruction was never implemented, and the economic strain SDI generated in The USSR finally lead to it's collapse.
As far as "arms for hostages", before I address that - what exactly is your complaint there?
1. Who said anything about people being socially immobile? Read what I said. I said Reagan believed that moving upward was evidence that you deserved to move upward. Forget about the positive or negative influences of luck, ancestry, etc. In this world, everyone gets what they deserve. That Reagan wound up as President is evidence that he deserved to rise up from midwestern poverty (or, according to Sarah Palin, Eureka, California). That a welfare queen was a welfare queen was evidence that she was unworthy, period.
2. Tell me, then, what did Reagan do that was different from other presidents? He did win the Cold War, right? He wasn't just "there when it happened," right? What did he do differently from other presidents?
This process of the Left "rehabilitating" opposition politicians after they are safely out of office applies not only to movement conservatives like Reagan, Buckley, and Goldwater, but to Republicans generally. In the liberal version Eisenhower was a senile golfer, Nixon was evil incarnate, Ford was Chevy Chase stumbling and falling, Bush 41 was Doonesbury's invisible man, and Dole was such a grave threat that the Clintons were justified in taking Chinese government money to defeat him. Now all of them are looked back on fondly, just as Bush 43 will be in a few years when there is another Republican president.
The process went less far with Nixon than with the others, because the Left can never forgive Nixon for taking out Alger Hiss, but even the New York Times took to admiring Nixon's post-presidential writings on foreign policy.
The reason that liberals love dead conservatives is because dead conservatives hold the potential for rebadging. When liberals misattribute progressive motives to a living conservative, the living conservative can speak out and set the record straight. It's just a matter of time before progressives are able to use the affection that Americans feel for Reagan and redirect it to their liberal objectives. Memories fade. People may well forget who this man was and what he meant to our nation.
By the way, for a supposedly pro-life guy, William F. Buckley was apparently all in favor of removing the respirator -- at least when it came to HIS loved ones:
MikeB:
As an underestimated writer once said, “The race may not always be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet.” This is the sense in which Reagan, and anyone else who can think straight, believes that success is evidence of ability. It is not incotrovertible evidence; as you point out, luck, connections, etc. make for many exceptions. But the existence of those exceptions does not invalidate the general rule. Additionally, Reagan and other conservatives believe that limited interference in natural competition has the effect of diminishing the exceptions. That is why, for example, we believe that the government should strive to maintain a level playing field, rather than identify winners and losers.
If you think these convictions make Reagan "awful," you are welcome to your opinion. Likewise, if you think the noblesse oblige attitude of "being good to the help" is preferable. But I wouldn't expect a lot of intelligent people to agree with you.
Going along with the whole "Republicans are the Daddy-Party" . . . it seems to me that liberal nostalgia for dead conservatives is totally understandable.
It's nearly universal human experience that people appreciate the affections of their mom day to day, but often don't appreciate Dad's work, strength, and protection until he's very old or dead.
Eisenhower, Goldwater, Ford, Reagan, WFB, Bush I - all get liberal appreciation now for their moderation and good sense.
MikeB, at least get your slander straight. Reagan wasn't even in office when the Soviet Union collapsed or the Berlin Wall came down. So he couldn't have "just been there".
MikeB, What did Reagan do differently
from other presidents? Do you remember SDI, Rykavik, evil empire,tear down this wall, Mr. G.,
military build-up, infusion of confidence & American exceptionalism,
pro-growth economic policies. Contrast his predecessors: Carter-
weakness, morass & indecesion at home & abroad; Nixon- detente with expansionist Soviets; Johnson- guns & butter welfare state & attrition warfare.
Helmut Kohl- no mean German chancellor regarded Reagan, first among others, as ending the cold war.
To be fair, some conservatives can get like this at times. Recently it's come along the lines of "Clinton wasn't so bad, all things considered," yada yada. If it were up to him, HillaryCare would be the law of the land. And his fecklessness in the face of the first WTC bombing and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole were key events that prompted Osama bin Laden to implement the 9/11 atrocity. (That's not my assumption; bin Laden said so himself.)
The only credit he deserves is in playing ball with the Republicans in balancing the budget. Yet according to what I've been reading lately, his personal scandals may have helped thwart a possible deal to reform Social Security?
So please, spare me Clinton nostalgia and the sentiment that he or Hillary are, by nature, less socialist than Obama.
"For starters, if liberals are going to celebrate Reagan, they might try to account for the fact that they fought his every move, alternating between derision and slander in the process."
Good point, but then they'd have to make true sense of it all and that's not something they do. They gloss over everything, beginning with anything only 5 minutes ago. I think it's a hearing thing; they reprocess and revise what's being said as its being said.
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