Getting an early start on the Labor Day Weekend, and playing hookie from the law mines. My Bride and I and my son will be seeing the Reagan biopic today. Full review to follow next week. The little I have seen of the film thus far I like, but I think they will have a hard time capturing Reagan. The man had an elusive quality about him, a part of him that defies analysis. No good biography has been written about him yet because of that quality and perhaps none ever will. He took American conservatism from the obsession of cranks, which too often was what it amounted to prior to Reagan, and made it a governing philosophy. I was a young man when he did this, observed his Presidency carefully, and I am still not certain how he did it. Some historical figures can only be understood centuries after their time, and perhaps Reagan is in their ranks. In any case he is the only president I ever voted for, as opposed to voting against the opposing candidate.
Update:
Loved the movie. A fine life and times tribute to Reagan. The cast was superb and a great mixture of drama and humor. Review next week.
Sadly, I was only able to vote FOR him once. As you mentioned, in all other presidential elections it was a vote against the other candidate.
I remember celebrating his victory over Carter as a 16year old. I was thrilled to vote for him in his second election. I, too, have voted against the other candidate instead of “for” someone since.
I wish another Reagan would come forward but, alas, that is not to be. Our current candidates leave much to be desired.
==
Reagan had excellent people skills and antagonists like Tip O’Neill enjoyed their time with him. However, people who saw him up close (e.g. Lyn Nofziger) and people looking at him from afar (e.g. Gail Sheehy) identified the same thing – that he was a thoroughgoing loner. Nofziger: “Didn’t have friends. Didn’t need them.”. A very awkward man like Richard Nixon had a small circle of tight friends (Bebe Rebozo, Robert Abplanalp, Walter Annenberg). Reagan’s social circle was composed of Nancy’s friends and their respective spouses. The Reagans had an unusually affectionate marriage, but parent-child relations were uneven and you add it up his children were the most unimpressive presidential offspring of the last three generations.
A critic of Edmund Morris maintained that Morris could not make sense of Reagan because Reagan actually was an open book – what you see is what you got and what he said he believed is what he actually believed. He maintained that members of the chatterati like Morris are constitutionally incapable of making sense of such a person.
Something Nofziger remarked upon was that Morris put an awful lot of material about Jane Wyman in the book which he thought odd because Wyman wouldn’t talk to him. Jane Wyman gave birth to a daughter in 1947 which died a few hours later. The memoir was dedicated to that deceased child. Per Nofziger, “Nancy’s always been sensitive about Jane” and these had to be interpreted as jabs with a stilletto.
==
Morris could hardly hide that he himself disliked spending time with Reagan. (“Much of his conversation was boring”).
==
Here’s a suggestion: for the next biography of Reagan, don’t give the advance to someone who despises the subject and the subject’s wife.
Back when we had a pope and a president….
[…] CatholicTrump Ceases Courting the Pro-Life Vote. Now onto Courting the Less Deathy Vote – CMRReagan the Movie – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American CatholicHarley-Davidson Remains Woke – Erik […]
Hmm… So, was my first vote in ’92 for Bush or against Clinton? Well, …both, I guess. I recall thinking that Bush had served as Reagan’s VP for eight years, I recall being disgusted with Clinton’s intentions. I eventually learned that Reagan had won originally despite Republican establishment preferences. I learned too that…Republicans don’t do well at establishing narratives.
That last was something Reagan did quite well it seems.
I understand that Michael Reagan has been less than enthusiastic about the accuracy of some areas depicted in the film. Of course, we all knew that films are a poor source of biological/historical information.