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The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite
Page Current Quote of the Week Like many other web logs, The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page doesn't have "comments" built in. You can certainly email me, and I'll usually answer, but you can't post a comment and see it on the site immediately. In fact, I can't remember ever opening up a dialog on the web site itself. But my recent weekly essay on the CBS-commissioned and canned miniseries on the Reagans provoked a response from Stephen Danckert, compiler of The Quotable Johnson: A Topical Compilation of His Wit and Moral Wisdom. He and I have exchanged emails in the past, and I respect his opinions; I was glad he approved of my publishing his email here, along with my response. I have long since perceived you to be a vile whig, but, really, don't you think this week's piece on The Reagans was over the top? Maybe you need to get out more. It's only a movie. Sure. But a movie based on historical characters owes some debt to truth. This was a ham-handed attack on Ronald Reagan, and those of us who admire him had every right to complain. If CBS had a movie on FDR in which FDR turns away a boatload of Jewish refugees (a historical fact), saying, "The last thing this country needs is more damn kikes," there would be outrage. And well there should be. Over and above the racially offensive term, this would attribute anti-Semitic tendencies and a callous disregard for human life to FDR-two qualities which even his most vigorous opponents have never attributed to him. Falling back on anti-Reagan books to defend your position was unworthy of you. I'll see your Draper (I'm not the only American who regards him as one step short of the people who wear tinfoil helmets while hunting for UFOs) and raise you a Lou Cannon and a George Schultz (I doubt either of them has a membership card in the vast right wing conspiracy). People can disagree about Reagan's accomplishments and his leadership style, but I find this smug "oh, everyone knows he was a ninny" attitude shameful. IMHO, it reveals a contempt born of ignorance and an unwillingness to engage in serious debate. It substitutes fashionable attitudes for rational arguments. And as the good doctor reminds us, we should never attitudenize. Honestly, if Reagan was a dumb, out-to-lunch actor, I'll take six more presidents just like him. He restored self-confidence to America, won the cold war without firing a shot, and effected a sea change in American politics (when was the last time you heard someone advocate for more government jobs, higher taxes, unilateral disarmament, isolationism, etc. etc.?). Maybe he just got lucky. But the more loony members of our vast right wing conspiracy (I'm a charter member) say the same thing about Clinton, and I always view that as a cheap shot. Clinton did a lot of good for the US, and I think any fair-minded observer would say he did more to restore prosperity than most presidents. I think a similar fair-mindedness would require one to admit that communism fell because Reagan challenged it, morally, economically, and militarily. CBS launched a poorly-written, ham-handed piece of propaganda produced by anti-Reagan zealots. Even the critics blasted it as a miserable piece of teledrama. Those of us who admire the President let CBS and its sponsors know that we didn't appreciate it, and that we would hold them accountable. Democracy and accountability joined to respect for authority and truth. I'll bet the good doctor would have liked that. Pax et gaudium, Steve Danckert Well, Steve, on the whole I don't regret what I wrote, although I regret failing to include everything I'd read in the week prior to that post. Unlike most weeks, when I upload the essay within minutes of writing it and re-reading it, for this week's I actually delayed uploading for at least eight hours, making sure I felt comfortable with its tone. What I do regret is the way I wrote about the license used in the infamous line about AIDS sufferers. I had read, and couldn't recollect where, that the license actually had some support; and because I couldn't remember where I'd read it, didn't mention it in the essay. Monday's The Daily Howler reminded me that it had been discussed in the New York Times in late October; in Edmund Morris's book Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, he quoted Reagan as saying "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." Morris repeated it in an op-ed piece in the New York Times last Sunday. Maybe Morris isn't telling the truth? Maybe he is. But it doesn't sound like such a stretch to go from what Morris wrote to the line in the miniseries ("They that live in sin shall die in sin"). As for whether or not there would be a justified outcry against a movie where FDR was quoted as saying, "The last thing this country needs is more damn kikes," while turning away a boatload of German Jews fleeing Hitler, I agree there would be an outcry. For one thing, as you noted, although we know that the US turned a refugee ship away, is there any record of FDR saying anything close to your hypothetical line? I pulled out my copy of David Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews, and couldn't find anything, but maybe it's in some other book. Yet I think it's also worth noting that the movie line attributed to Reagan is of a different ilk than your rhetorical FDR line. To properly parallel the FDR line, the Reagan movie writers would have had to have written something like "This country is better off without a bunch of damned faggots." (Saying they live in sin is not the same thing; many churches, as you know, consider homosexual activity a sin, yet don't call homosexuals faggots or queers.) Getting back to my comment about "maybe it's in some other book," I really am aware that books may overlap in some content, but not completely. That's why I went beyond referring just to Theodore Draper's A Very Thin Line. One of the Timothy Noah columns refers to Reagan's lack of alertness in books by Donald Regan, Peggy Noonan, and David Gergen. (By the way, I don't necessarily think "anti-Reagan" is a bad thing, do you? I would have a problem with "anti-facts," but that's not the case with Draper's book: he pored over some 50,000 official documents in writing his book. And as for the "anti-Reagan" tone, I don't think it's as harsh as Prosecutor Walsh's book. Too bad Reagan's successor basically prevented the truth from coming out with his Christmas gift pardon of Cap Weinberger.) So, no, I don't think mentioning Draper's book was beneath me. I'm glad I read it, and I highly recommend it. (Have you read it? It's really more about North and Poindexter than Reagan himself.) Lastly, I think it's unfortunate that the miniseries was pulled. Everyone who disagreed with it was free to not watch it, but now, very few people can watch it even if they wanted to. Even though I probably wouldn't have watched it, I very much regret having my choice taken away from me. Cheers, Frank |