Reagan Still Dead, Film at 11

For those of us with strong ethical objections to Reagan's policies, all we can do is wait out the insanity and try our best to fend off charges of being insulting and unpatriotic. After all, it's only acceptable to question Clinton's ethics...

The most heinous political crime I could commit right now is to somehow make light of Reagan's death, particularly by focusing on those parts of his legacy that may have been, from the point of view of poor, working people, less than completely rosy. Disease and death among elites gives them a free historical pass, for a while, until some other ruling group takes over and decides to re-cast the icons and conclusions. What all the elites get to do, however, is spend their political careers causing disease and death among the lower classes, so that they can enjoy tears and fanfare when they succumb--surrounded by loved ones and the best care money can buy--to their own eventual disease and death.

With a National Day of Mourning tomorrow (even Wyoming's Democratic Governor, Dave Freudenthal, has ordered all state functions cease), with (so far) a week's worth of uninterrupted news coverage, complete with talking heads and Vice President Cheney "speculating" on the undeniable links between the greatness of Reagan and that of Bush the Younger, and with thoughts of an upcoming Republican convention during which every effort will be made to pass an imaginary baton from the ghost of Reagan to the ghoul of Bush, I am suffering intense Reagan-fatigue.

It's not even about the man--a complex combination of working class origins, middle class resentment and ruling class warmaking--so much as it is about the naked, undeniable effort to utilize his death and legacy as a vindication of Bushite neoconservatism, and to silence any kind of meaningful historical analysis and accompanying political dissent. This has not been a week of mourning so much as a week of revisionist cheerleading, and even though I shouldn't be surprised at it, I am still irritated by it.

As a thought experiment, just indulge me this vision: If this were William Jefferson Clinton's week of mourning--if Clinton had died and the powers-that-be declared a series of official funerals, holidays, casket displays and routes--if news channels and radio talk shows broadcast tributes to Clinton 24-7--if politicians vowed on every stump to carry on Clinton's legacy--well, a certain section of the American public and politicians would be furious. They would point out the numerous sins and high crimes of the Clinton administration. They would strongly opine that Clinton was a poor political role model. And from their perspective, they would be right. I certainly think they would be right.

So Reagan gets a free pass for Iran-Contra, the rich/poor gap, deregulation of savings and loans, cavorting with right wing dictators, etc. Clinton will die and conservatives will dance on his grave, if they don't piss on it first, and they'll forget their calls for civility when the Gipper took the dirt nap.

Funny thing about that: Dick Morris's column today, "Clinton was Reagan's Ratifier," upholds an argument suggested by many others, that Clinton implemented much of the Reagan agenda, including welfare reform, balanced budgets (which Reagan could never achieve despite his rhetoric of government frugality), and in general, much of what the Gingerich Republicans and centrist Democrats wanted. Morris, an extraordinary cad and political pimp, lucidly questions the dichotomy most of the other cads and pimps take for granted: that there is a huge value gap between Clinton and Reagan.

My point here, however, is merely that Reagan generated a great deal of divisiveness and hatred--just like Clinton did--but the rules are simply different. The fact is that a currently dominant section of the ruling class believes it is vital to place Reagan in the same category as Lincoln and FDR, so that certain fashionable political philosophies in the current administration can appear timeless and sage, rather than what they really are: transitive and cynical.

My secondary point, I suppose, is: Given that Clinton was an impressively better Republican president than either Reagan or Bush the Younger (I think Bush the Elder was a Whig, wasn't he?) and that Clinton also provided the Right with an enemy who energized and reinvigorated the most extreme elements in the Republican party, then judging by the criteria by which Reagan has been revered this week, Clinton's eventual passing ought to generate even greater fanfare...if the ruling class were honest, really...