Old-School Stuff

ReaganBy Lou Cannon Putnam’s, 432 pp., $19.95 One of the less appealing by-products of the television revolution has been the appearance of a new species of reporter: the Washington Know-It-All. This journalistic blight manages to convey the impression that he has been around town since God was a child, watching Presidents and lesser fry come and go. He almost visibly staggers under the weight of his accumulated experience and wisdom. When a new President is inaugurated, this mobile puddle of selfsatisfaction assembles with two or three of his peers in front of the nearest television camera and patronizes the New Boy mercilessly: “He’ll learn!” “Remember when . . .” “I give him six months.” Etc.

Let us be grateful, then, that the first serious full-scale study of Ronald Reagan from childhood to the White House has been written, not by one of these preening poseurs, but by a down-toearth political reporter of the old school: Lou Cannon of the Washington Post.

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William A. Rusher

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ReaganBy Lou Cannon Putnam’s, 432 pp., $19.95 One of the less appealing by-products of the television revolution has been the appearance of a new species of reporter: the Washington Know-It-All. This journalistic blight manages to convey the impression that he has been around town since God was a child, watching Presidents and lesser fry come and go. He almost visibly staggers under the weight of his accumulated experience and wisdom. When a new President is inaugurated, this mobile puddle of selfsatisfaction assembles with two or three of his peers in front of the nearest television camera and patronizes the New Boy mercilessly: “He’ll learn!” “Remember when . . .” “I give him six months.” Etc.

Let us be grateful, then, that the first serious full-scale study of Ronald Reagan from childhood to the White House has been written, not by one of these preening poseurs, but by a down-toearth political reporter of the old school: Lou Cannon of the Washington Post.