De-mystifying the Reagan mystique
By: Michael Kinsley
WashPost
February 8, 2011
This column is mostly self-plagiarism. Ten years ago, on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s 90th birthday, I tried to make a sober and compact case against the notion that he was a great, or even a very successful, president. Apparently I was not effective. On the 100th anniversary of his birth (and seven years after his death), he has moved into Mount Rushmore territory: beyond criticism — not just among conservatives and Republicans but among liberals and moderates, who insist that “you have to hand it to him,” and, most notably, among the media.
I do not think that you have to hand it to him. So, one more time, here is the case for not handing it to him. Claims for Reagan’s greatness are in bold. Counters follow.
1. Reagan got the nation out of its Jimmy Carter funk and restored its optimistic spirit. OK, let’s give him that one. Carter was not a lighthearted leader. To the extent that a nation’s psyche can be repaired by words and facial expressions (and to some extent, it can), Reagan therapy did the trick. But the main reason we cheered up in the years after 1981 was that things got objectively better.
2. Reagan ended stagflation. Well, no. The “stagflation” of the late 1970s was two different phenomena. First came inflation, then came a vicious recession that wrung inflation out of the economy, but at a high price. The recession was purposely engineered by the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker. The real hero of this episode was Carter. He appointed Volcker, knowing what Volcker would do and what it would probably cost him politically. Reagan also deserves some credit for standing by and not complaining or demagoguing while Volcker’s chemotherapy had time to work. He even reappointed Volcker — once. But when Volcker wanted a third term, Reagan pushed him aside.
The return of a stable currency was the essential foundation for the prosperity of the late 1980s — the “Reagan boom.” When I wrote this piece the first time in 2001, I asserted that “Reagan hagiographers don’t even have a theory, beyond raw assertion, to explain how their man ... stopped inflation.” A couple of people pointed out that I had forgotten the PATCO strike, in which Reagan stood firm against, and ultimately broke, the air traffic controllers union. This episode was like a road company version of Margaret Thatcher’s epic battles with the unions in Great Britain. But I was wrong to say that Reagan fans didn’t even have a theory. They have a theory.
(More here.)
WashPost
February 8, 2011
This column is mostly self-plagiarism. Ten years ago, on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s 90th birthday, I tried to make a sober and compact case against the notion that he was a great, or even a very successful, president. Apparently I was not effective. On the 100th anniversary of his birth (and seven years after his death), he has moved into Mount Rushmore territory: beyond criticism — not just among conservatives and Republicans but among liberals and moderates, who insist that “you have to hand it to him,” and, most notably, among the media.
I do not think that you have to hand it to him. So, one more time, here is the case for not handing it to him. Claims for Reagan’s greatness are in bold. Counters follow.
1. Reagan got the nation out of its Jimmy Carter funk and restored its optimistic spirit. OK, let’s give him that one. Carter was not a lighthearted leader. To the extent that a nation’s psyche can be repaired by words and facial expressions (and to some extent, it can), Reagan therapy did the trick. But the main reason we cheered up in the years after 1981 was that things got objectively better.
2. Reagan ended stagflation. Well, no. The “stagflation” of the late 1970s was two different phenomena. First came inflation, then came a vicious recession that wrung inflation out of the economy, but at a high price. The recession was purposely engineered by the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker. The real hero of this episode was Carter. He appointed Volcker, knowing what Volcker would do and what it would probably cost him politically. Reagan also deserves some credit for standing by and not complaining or demagoguing while Volcker’s chemotherapy had time to work. He even reappointed Volcker — once. But when Volcker wanted a third term, Reagan pushed him aside.
The return of a stable currency was the essential foundation for the prosperity of the late 1980s — the “Reagan boom.” When I wrote this piece the first time in 2001, I asserted that “Reagan hagiographers don’t even have a theory, beyond raw assertion, to explain how their man ... stopped inflation.” A couple of people pointed out that I had forgotten the PATCO strike, in which Reagan stood firm against, and ultimately broke, the air traffic controllers union. This episode was like a road company version of Margaret Thatcher’s epic battles with the unions in Great Britain. But I was wrong to say that Reagan fans didn’t even have a theory. They have a theory.
(More here.)
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