The Aide Issue

Tom Bethell

First of all, let it be said, President Reagan deserves our gratitude, and our admiration. For four years he has been on the receiving end of a torrent of verbal abuse, some of it from Moscow, some of it from Democrats, much of it from our own news media (the tone and the language varied, but the accusations were much the same), and not only did he come through the ordeal cheerfully, but he displayed something approaching heroism in the way he so courteously credited his critics with good intentions. “No no no,” he would repeatedly say, “I’m not trying to hurt the poor,” expressing bafflement that he had once again been misunderstood. We in the audience, of course, knew that he had been understood; that his interrogators were really his accusers. How tempting to have lashed out at some point. But Reagan never did, and in that there was a touch of greatness.

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Tom Bethell

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Tom Bethell

First of all, let it be said, President Reagan deserves our gratitude, and our admiration. For four years he has been on the receiving end of a torrent of verbal abuse, some of it from Moscow, some of it from Democrats, much of it from our own news media (the tone and the language varied, but the accusations were much the same), and not only did he come through the ordeal cheerfully, but he displayed something approaching heroism in the way he so courteously credited his critics with good intentions. “No no no,” he would repeatedly say, “I’m not trying to hurt the poor,” expressing bafflement that he had once again been misunderstood. We in the audience, of course, knew that he had been understood; that his interrogators were really his accusers. How tempting to have lashed out at some point. But Reagan never did, and in that there was a touch of greatness.