Despite the August heat, we breathe more easily when Congress adjourns. But President Reagan didn’t exactly distinguish himself as the recess began. He apologized his way back to the ranch, seemingly following an appeasement strategy mapped out for him by his lamentable advisors. They make the singular mistake of believing that if they do what the media say—be “sensitive,” in short—then they will receive an ovation. Their error, and Reagan’s, is to think that his “critics” do not understand him. But they do. They are hostile, not ignorant; enemies, not critics.
When Reagan tries to pre-empt criticism by claiming that he is “concerned” about hunger, “compassionate” toward the poor, “sensitive” to blacks—that is, when he debates the issues on his enemies’ turf and in their terms—he should not be surprised when they respond with hollow laughter—or “snickers,” as Anthony Lewis put it in the New York Times. Truth has got very little to do with the matter now that the members of the press have adopted a strategy of left-wing McCarthyism to oppose their foe. Reagan’s enemies clearly understand that his defensiveness only legitimizes their accusations (now called “perceptions” by the press). When Reagan said he was “perplexed” and “deeply concerned” to find that there was hunger in America, Anthony Lewis replied: “The audience watching the show may be excused if it snickers now and then. For cynicism is thick on the ground.” (Cynicism does not normally elicit snickers. It was Lewis himself who was being cynical.) But that is what you get for listening to advisors who think that people like Lewis are appeasable.
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