22.6.04
Reagan Lovefest Smackdown
via Wonkette, via Undernews comes this letter from William Greider, the WaPo's former assistant managing editor:
My condolences to the staff and management of The Post. I had no idea you felt so deeply about Ronald Reagan. I was a reporter and editor at The Post during the launch of Reagan's "revolution," and we had a somewhat different take on his presidency then.ZING! Seriously though, when you consider the WaPo's origins - at least as a paper of merit and consequence - and then see what it's become, you just have to do one of those Jon Stewart eye-rubs/bugs.
Reagan nurtured the strong and punished the weak. He fostered the great regressive shift in economic rewards that continues to this day, while ignoring a visible deterioration in the middle class and manufacturing.
His economic theory was cockeyed and did not add up (both parties spent 20 years cleaning up Reagan's deficit mess). But Reaganomics did deliver the boodle to the appropriate interests, the same ones who financed his rise in politics.
A disturbing meanness lurked at the core of Reagan's political agenda and was quite tangible at the time, though evidently forgotten now. We wrote tough stories about that and other contentious questions; I remain proud of the coverage. I would rank Reagan's place in history right up there with Warren G. Harding's. You want to put him in the company of FDR, maybe even Lincoln. Future historians will decide who's right. Meanwhile, I read your funeral coverage as a lengthy, lugubrious correction.
perma-linky posted by jkd : 10:47
