Reagan De-Reaganizing?

Summer in Washington is the silly season, and one of the sillier vagaries making the rounds is that Ronald Reagan is renouncing his Reaganism. This view is advanced by the fringe Left and by the fringe Right and, oddly, by a few sensible folk in between who think they divine a George McGovern inside Ronald Reagan screaming to get out. Anthony Lewis, of the New York Times, says that “everyone” knows that the President is “changing his policies—or at least changing his tune—for political reasons.” In support of this, he cites Mr. Reagan’s actions on hunger, racial discrimination, women’s rights, education, the environment. From the Right, we are hearing that Mr. Reagan has oscillated back to his “moderate mode” and has lost his “ideological edge.”

On the heels of a report from the Census Bureau that 15 per cent of the U.S. population falls at or below the poverty level, President Reagan appointed a White House Task Force on Food Assistance, declaring, “If one American child is forced to go to bed hungry at night, or if one senior citizen is denied the dignity of proper nutrition, that is a national tragedy.” This upset some conservatives here, notwithstanding the President’s genuine perplexity over how it is, with the foodstamp program, that people in this country still go hungry.

Summer in Washington is the silly season, and one of the sillier vagaries making the rounds is that Ronald Reagan is renouncing his Reaganism. This view is advanced by the fringe Left and by the fringe Right and, oddly, by a few sensible folk in between who think they divine a George McGovern inside Ronald Reagan screaming to get out. Anthony Lewis, of the New York Times, says that “everyone” knows that the President is “changing his policies—or at least changing his tune—for political reasons.” In support of this, he cites Mr. Reagan’s actions on hunger, racial discrimination, women’s rights, education, the environment. From the Right, we are hearing that Mr. Reagan has oscillated back to his “moderate mode” and has lost his “ideological edge.”

On the heels of a report from the Census Bureau that 15 per cent of the U.S. population falls at or below the poverty level, President Reagan appointed a White House Task Force on Food Assistance, declaring, “If one American child is forced to go to bed hungry at night, or if one senior citizen is denied the dignity of proper nutrition, that is a national tragedy.” This upset some conservatives here, notwithstanding the President’s genuine perplexity over how it is, with the foodstamp program, that people in this country still go hungry.