Presto, Change-o!

The more things change...

Ever since Reagan, we've been handed an Establishment consensus that opposition to supply side economics is class warfare, and that government doesn't work—though it just might, if only Democrats were more accommodating.

As government haters have hastened over the last thirty years to grab control of said government, racism has been the name of the game in reaching their voters.

The tactic was elevated to the national stage by Nixon and refined by Reagan.

Driftglass has written powerfully about this for years; sadly, the trick never changes.

Here he is a couple of days ago, on the psychology of the party's rank and file.

And about the GOP since Reagan, Driftglass observes here "how a party-line change happens in a totalizing cult like North Korea or the GOP."

Hitting The Road

Dorothea Lange, Library of Congress

"Just remember, for every person who is out of work, there are nine of us with jobs."
—President Reagan on the unemployment rate

Capturing the FYIGM essence of his party; quoted by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor.

Another quote from Slansky: Roger Wilkins on the man who would depart the White House in January 1989—

"A high-powered cheerleader for our worst instincts, a nasty man whose major talent is to make us feel good about being creepy and who lets us pretend that tomorrow will never come."

Tools

If not the sharpest in the drawer, they served their purpose fully.

As the guy on the left will continue to, what with the PR machine endowed in perpetuity.

The 61st Anniversary Of His 39th Birthday

If there had to have a Reagan centenary, one thing about it was good: Paul Slansky's book became available again.


The book covers politics—and what passed for culture—in the 1980s. And contains a page of listings under "Reagan, Ronald Wilson," including such subheads as "ignorance defense employed by"; "inability to answer questions of"; "respects paid to dead Nazis by"; "disbelief by public of."

Ronald Reagan may not have been able to pronounce it—

7/28 [1987] A careless speech writer includes the word "paradigm" in President Reagan's speech on superconductivity. Yes, he pronounces it "paradijum."

—but he certainly left us one.

After the federal deficit had reached its first trillion in October 1981—

11/23 President Reagan vetoes a stopgap spending bill, thus forcing the federal government—for the first time in history—to temporarily shut down. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

And there was the constant abetting by certain witnesses—

6/14 [1984] At his 25th press conference, President Reagan claims that his tax policies—which have produced a windfall for the wealthy—"have been more beneficial" to the poor "than to anyone else." Though this would seem to be a difficult claim to get away with, no one challenges him."

Speaking of which, I didn't notice much media play for the anniversary. Another good thing, although it may only reflect how settled a place Reagan has in mainstream narrative.

This year it's mainly been left to the presidential hopefuls of Reagan's party to invoke his name—over, and over, and over...

Pygmies those candidates might be, but they are not so different from their idol—just less slick and (so far) less well stage-managed. A Herman Cain on foreign policy; a Rick Perry on governance; they and the rest have sounded little more moronic than the original, considering how low the bar was for The Great Communicator.

In his typical press conferences, Reagan deflected questions or referred them to any convenient official present. More than once, he was seen turning to Nancy for a whispered cue.

Of Reagan's diligence in office, just a few of Slansky's assorted examples—

8/19 [1981] Ed Meese sees no need to wake President Reagan just to tell him the Navy has shot down two Libyan jets. Defending Meese's decision, Reagan explains, "If our planes are shot down, yes, they'd wake me up right away. If the other fellows were shot down, why wake me up?"

8/31 [1981] "He acted like there was nothing else in the world he had to do, nothing else on his mind."
—Former movie actor Rex Allen, who spent 45 minutes with President Reagan after presenting him with four pairs of free boots

"There are times when you really need him to do some work, and all he wants to do is tell stories about his movie days."
—Unnamed White House aide on President Reagan's detachment from his job

9/1 A Soviet fighter mistakenly shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it strays into Soviet airspace, killing 269, including right-wing congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA). George Shultz calls Tip O'Neill to tell him about the incident.

"What does the President think about this?" asks O'Neill.

"We'll tell him when he wakes up," says Shultz.

Dan Rather returns instantly from his vacation upon hearing the news and—after CBS shows him on horseback at the ranch as the crisis unfolds—so does President Reagan.

6/7 "It was really funny. I was sitting there so worried about throw weight, and Reagan suddenly asks us if we've seen War Games."
—Unnamed congressman describing a White House meeting about arms control at which the President revealed that averting a movie nuclear catastrophe was far more interesting to him than the nuts and bolts of preventing a real-life one

10/2 [1984] At a White House briefing with Caspar Weinberger, President Reagan is asked how his MX missiles will be deployed. "I don't know but what maybe you haven't gotten into the area that I'm gonna turn over to the, heh heh, to the Secretary of Defense," he says sheepishly.

"The silos will be hardened," Weinberger says, then nods approvingly as Reagan volunteers, "Yes, I could say this. The plan also includes the hardening of silos."

10/5 [1985] Larry Speakes is asked if President Reagan has read the House report on the latest Beirut truck bombing. "I don't think he's read the report in detail," he says. "It's five-and-a-half pages, double-spaced."

2/4 [1985] Addressing a convention of religious broadcasters, President Reagan defends his arms build-up, citing Luke 14:31 to verify that "the scriptures are on our side in this." Then, for the benefit of the Jews in the audience, he describes how much he liked looking out over Lafayette Park at "the huge menorah, celebrating the Passover season."

9/1 [1986] "Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere."
—President Ragan, as quoted in a Fortune interview for its cover story "What Managers Can Learn from Manager Reagan"

Pitchman For The Ages

Before hawking the GOP Southern Strategy and trickle-down economics, he pushed other product—


And what should never be forgotten—

From Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

THE [1984] REAGAN CAMPAIGN TALKS ABOUT ITS ADS

"I heard you were selling soap so I thought you might like to meet the bar."
—President Reagan to his advertising team.

"It's warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy—but a good kind of fuzzy."
—Ron Travisano on his Reagan foreign policy spot, which features kids getting haircuts

We'll have this nice couple in an ordinary house. Something good will happen to them, and the guy will say, 'Hey honey, now that we've got so much money, let's go out for a steak.' But in the Hispanic version, we'll have the guy say, 'Let's go out for a taco.'"
—Media adviser Doug Watts explaining Reagan ethnic ad strategy

1987: What's News?

March 4: Reagan delivers his "my heart tells me I didn't do it" Iran-Contra speech.

On March 5, Congressman Henry Gonzalez introduces an impeachment resolution.

The resolution, writes Mark Hertsgaard in On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, was—

...ignored by major news organizations, apparently because few other members of Congress endorsed it. "We were aware of it, and we watched to see how much support it got and whether it was going someplace, but it didn't," explained CBS' [Evening News executive producer Tom] Bettag. (1988, page 334)

Hertsgaard precedes this by noting had been the media attitude toward impeachment: that, in the words of NYT reporter Joel Brinkley, "public sentiment wasn't there to impeach Ronald Reagan."

That was not clear, says Hertsgaard, and he notes how various polls showed one-third to one-half of respondents believing Reagan should resign if found to have known about arms sales; in one poll, 57% thought Reagan was lying.

Of the media's insistence that there was no story, Hertsgaard notes the most question is—

How could the public be expected to develop an opinion on a given issue unless that issue was posed for their consideration. In the American system, that was the responsibility of the press. Yet the modern ethic of objectivity precluded such journalism. Only if members of the political elite, in this case the Congress actually did something about impeachment would it become "news"... (In fact, the fullest and virtually the only expositions of the impeachment question to appear in The New York Times and The Washington Post during the scandal were opinion articles, one in each newspaper, explaining why Congress was unlikely to pursue impeachment.) As New York Times Washington bureau Chief Craig Whitney explained, "The press is a captive of things as they happen."

Henry Gonzalez actually "did something"—as he throughout his life stood up for justice being done.

And it was something that could only be met by silence, being just the wrong something for those awed by Reagan's "popularity."

What To Tell The Children?

Baraboo, Wisconsin; pass the smelling salts—

...people with kids are driving by... little kids who are old enough to be able to read and might say, 'Mommy, what does that mean?' said Andrea Lombard, a Sauk County supervisor and first vice chairwoman of the Republican Party of Sauk County. "Well, how does Mommy explain that? I'm not sure."

For this bit of handwringing, Mr. Pierce has excellent advice—

"Actually, children, Mommy is a prominent local Republican and, therefore, Mommy is accessorial to the goggle-eyed Kochsucker in question. Mommy is part of the reason that nice Mrs. Pulaskiewicz isn't teaching you music any more and is now pumping gas in Pewaukee. Mommy should be placed in the stocks on the lawn of the state capitol in Madison with all the rest of them until the situation improves and the goggle-eyed Kochsucker in question is removed from the people's house and drop-kicked over the line into Illinois."

Simple.

The thing about this picture that really should be noticed is exactly the one to which the Kochsucker and allies turn blind eyes: green grass in Wisconsin, at this time of year?

What to tell the children, indeed.

1983: Hollywood Holiday

At this moment in 2011, the wingnuts froth about an Obama Christmas card clearly meant to signal cosiness, neutrality, and (no doubt) bipartisanship...

On the other hand, the image from a Republican in the White House could only feature "family, faith and freedom" (not pets); therefore, there was no 2005 White House card.

1988: Let Them Eat...

Be sure to reach for the Reagan fundie pal brand...

Quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/13 With five weeks left in office, President Reagan delivers his farewell address on domestic policy, in which he continues to deny that his defense spending increases and tax cuts were in any way responsible for the $155 billion deficit, blaming instead an "iron triangle" of congressmen, lobbyists and journalists.

12/22 President Reagan—whose tenure has coincided with a huge increase in the homeless population—uses his last interview with David Brinkley to again claim that many of these unfortunates are homeless "by their own choice," as must be many of the jobless, since he again points out that the Sunday papers are full of want ads.

Holiday Spirit, 1980s-2011

Mr. Dickens......meet Mr. Meese.

Some 1983 quotes, from Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/8 Continuing his tradition of holiday season insensitivity, a well-fed Ed Meese scoffs at the notion that the administration's policies are unnecessarily cruel to the poor. "I don't know of any authoritative figures that there are hungry children," he declares. "I've heard a lot of anecdotal stuff, but I haven't heard any authoritative figures.... I think some people are going to soup kitchens voluntarily. I know we've had considerable information that people go to soup kitchens because the food is free and that that's easier than paying for it. ... I think that they have money."

12/15 Ed Meese tells the National Press Club that literature's classic miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, to whom he has recently been compared, suffered from "bad press in his time. If you really look at the facts, he didn't exploit Bob Cratchit." Explains Meese, "Bob Cratchit was paid 10 shillings a week, which was a very good wage at the time.... Bob, in fact, had good cause to be happy with his situation. He lived in a house, not a tenement. His wife didn't have to work.... He was able to afford the traditional Christmas dinner of roast goose and plum pudding.... So let's be fair to Scrooge. He had his faults, but he wasn't unfair to anyone."

12/16 "Did he really say that? I can't believe he said that. ... Dickens is saying that the poor deserve to live not on the margins, but with comfort and love and with freedom and medical attention. I mean, isn't that the very point about Tiny Tim? ...He desperately needs a doctor and can't get to one because his family is so poor....He's dying because he can't get medical care....Boy, I'm really getting angry now. I can't believe these people."
—University of Pennsylvania Victorian literature scholar Nina Auerbach on the Meese interpretation of A Christmas Carol

You almost have to feel for Ed Meese, what with his having to work so hard to spread the word. After all, this was decades before the bipartisan consensus would be that the poor are bankrupting us. Just one recent sign of the latter: scams involving food stamps—instead of chicanery by, say, Wall Street —would seem to be the only fraud worthy of prosecution by the Feds.

Reagan demonized the poor for political gain. On landing in White House, he and his administration found it more advisable to pretend U.S. levels of poverty and hunger were exaggerated.

The percentage of the population in poverty continues a staggering (if not surprising) rise, in the decades since Reaganite policies won.

But not to worry: the noise machine is there to make sure the public knows the poor have phones and TVs; ergo, there's no poverty. This (and its corollary: poor people are fat, so they are not poor), are trotted out around this time of year, just as the public might be most susceptible to feeling charitable.

With the ranks of the permanently unemployed rising—and middle-class security an illusion—making the unemployed into Welfare Queens in need of drug testing is just one of the newest fronts in the war on the 99 Percent.

Holiday season 2011: the head of Republican Party—like Meese, a vastly overstuffed sort—calls hungry children in need of school meals year-round "wanton little waifs and serfs dependent on the state."

Even if not widely reported, reality—which can include the emotional disturbance brought on by despair—sometimes intrudes.

The Dear Leader of the post-Reagan Revolution has been back in the headlines, and proposing child labor for the poor.

Mere recycled shtick, consistent with Gingrich's 1994 proposal to put the children of the poor in orphanages.

Looking back brings up the way the whole dynamic operates. Although those of us who lived through the period remember the ridicule heaped on Gingrich, once the Big Idea was put On The Table it became an issue in need of consensus from Serious People.

Reagan Era: On The Trail Of A Tale

The 1980s did not completely lack detectives willing to take a close look at Reagan's unsourced anecdotes.

Political scientist Michael Paul Rogin, for one. His book Ronald Reagan: The Movie examines political mythologies and their use in demonizing the "other" throughout US history. His analysis of how Reagan transformed movie scripts into personal myth, and their use in his political career forms one chapter.

Rogin's 1985 appearance on 60 Minutes—to popular non-acclaim—was at least an effort at truth-telling.

And at least one real journalist, Lars-Erik Nelson, went after the source of a treasured Reagan tale; recounted by Paul Slansky in The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/12 [1983] "A B-17 coming back across the channel from a raid over Europe, badly shot up by aircraft...The young ball-turret gunner was wounded, and they couldn't get him out of the turret there while flying.

"But over the channel, the plane began to lose altitude, and the commander had to order his men to bail out. As the men started to leave the plane, the last one to leave—the boy, understandably, knowing he was being left behind to go down with the plane, cried out in terror—the last man to leave the plane saw the commander sit down on the floor. He took the boy's hand and said, 'Never mind, son, we'll ride it down together.' Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously awarded."
—President Reagan addressing the Congressional Medal of Honor Society

By 12/16, says Slansky,

Columnist Lars-Erik Nelson, after examining the citations of all 434 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during World War II—reveals that not one of them matches the story President Reagan told the other day. "It's not true," writes Nelson. "It didn't happen. It's a Reagan story....The President of the United States went before an audience of 300 real Congressional Medal of Honor winners and told them about a make-believe Congressional Medal of Honor winner."

Responds Larry Speakes, "If you tell the same story five times, it's true."

And Nelson stayed with the story—

12/28 Lars-Erik Nelson reports that a reader saw a scene very similar to President Reagan's Medal of Honor story in the 1944 movie Wing and a Prayer. "Adding to the confusion," writes Nelson, "Dana Andrews at one point reprimands a glory-seeking young pilot with the words, 'This isn't Hollywood.' ...You could understand that some in the audience might confuse reality with fiction.

And on to 1984—

1/11 ...Nelson suggests another source for the Medal of Honor story: an apochrypal item in the April 1944 issue of Reader's Digest, a magazine known to be a life-long Reagan favorite. "The bomber had been almost ripped apart by German cannon," it read. "The ball turret gunner was badly wounded and stuck in the blister on the underside of the fuselage. Crewmen worked frantically to extricate the youngster, but there was nothing they could do. They began to jump. The terror-stricken lad screamed in fear as he saw what was happening. The last man to jump heard the remaining crewman, a gunner, say, 'Take it easy, kid. We'll take this ride together.'"

But Nelson was an honest-to-god journalist; from the New York Observer's November 2000 Nelson obit—

A friend of his noted that a rare foray into television - an appearance on Meet the Press in 1998 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, along with Steven Brill, Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post - left Mr. Nelson so infuriated by the grandstanding of Tim Russert that he took to calling the show "Me the Press."

"He did not have any appetite for those yelling shows, or what he called the 'theater criticism' mode of analyzing politics," Mr. Dwyer said. "I don't know why people called him old-school, because the old school is the only school-everything else is fake."

Simply put, Mr. Dwyer said, "he was a no-bullshit guy."

Nelson died of a stoke on November 20— after weeks of monitoring the Florida recount shenanigans, post-presidential election. I can't remember who said it—and can't find a citation—but sometime after 2000 some writer or other called Lars-Erik Nelson "the first casualty of the Bush Administration."

The Reagan Era: Gifts That Keep Giving (II)

The sponsors—and their Spokesman—reached new frontiers for pushing product.

The index of Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor includes, among other sub-heads to the "Reagan, Ronald Wilson"—the category, "improbable letters of support cited by"—

11/30 [1981]
President Reagan tells a $2,500-per-ticket GOP fundraiser in Cincinnati about a letter from a blind supporter. "He wrote in Braille… to tell me that if cutting his pension would help get this country back on its feet, he'd like to have me cut his pension." The altruistic soul's identity is never revealed.

1/14 [1982] President Reagan tells a business luncheon in New York about a Massachusetts resident in his 80s who supposedly sent in his Social Security check "to be used for reducing the national debt." As usual, no proof is offered.

6/27 [1984] "Your policies are not in the least anti-black or anti-poor. As a matter of fact, it's my opinion that your fight against inflation, your war on the drug traffic, your tough stand against street crime, you effort in revitalizing the nation's economy, are all of great importance to us poor people and us black people in America."
—Letter allegedly received by President Reagan from a 39-year old black man whose identity, as is so often the case with these epistles of unsolicited support, goes unrevealed

One of the innovations of Reagan's PR forces was to introduce to a mass audience the spurious rumor and unattributed anecdote so beloved by the ultra-Right. "Welfare queen" registered with those for whom it was intended, even as it was absurd to anyone the least connected to real American life.

Despite a largely compliant media, there still was a certain amount of skepticism toward Reagan and his stories. But this was years before Faux News would make it so easy to create and promote myths in service of the agenda—from "frivolous lawsuits" to "union thugs protest in Madison"—and on to whatever fake anecdotes will be used to determine future "public discourse."

The Reagan Era: Gifts That Keep Giving (I)

In The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, William Kleinknecht covers, in a chapter entitled "The Looting of America," the Reagan blitz to deregulate everything.

Following the gory details of how oversight was removed or subverted for financial institutions, workplace safety, airlines and pretty much all consumer goods and services, Kleinknecht adds special mention of Mark Fowler, Reagan's head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Of course the appointment was consistent with the administration's MO: just install a sworn opponent of an agency to subvert its function from the top. [See, for example, James Watt.]

Fowler's take on broadcasting and the public interest: "Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures."

More from Kleinknecht—

Mark Fowler, Reagan's first chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, was the spiritual father of broadcast deregulation. He came into office with a profound disdain for the notion that television and radio airwaves were owned by the public, a concept that had been the cornerstone of communications law since 1934. He felt the airwaves should be the province of corporations, whose competition in the free market would be enough to serve the public interest. "It's time to move away from thinking of broadcasters as trustees and time to treat them the way that everyone else in this society does, that is, as a business," he said. "Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures." Fowler said he took it as an "article of faith that any successful businessman is meeting a public need." He was fond of cloaking himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan, once boasting that he was "not the captive of any industry or industry in general. I am a captive of a philosophy of government we call Reaganism."

These were not just idle words. In Fowler's six-year tenure as chairman, the FCC reviewed or abolished 89 percent of the regulations governing broadcasting. By 1987, the commission had done away with the fairness doctrine, which required broadcast outlets to cover both sides of public issues; the provision that required broadcasters to allow public figures equal time to respond to attacks; the requirement that politicians be given airtime around elections; and the rule that stations keep a file of all their complaints from the public. Fowler also dropped the FCC's enforcement of misconduct on the part of broadcasting license holders.

Fowler's "most important contribution to the homogenization of news and entertainment," notes Kleinknecht, was in loosening limits to company ownership of multiple media outlets.

When Fowler took over, a single entity was restricted to owning no more than seven each for TV, AM and FM radio stations. That number was increased to twelve, and the rule that a station be held for three years before sale was abolished. Those changes alone were—

enough to set off a round of mergers in the broadcasting industry, including Capital Cities' acquisition of the American Broadcasting Corporation, the first sale of a major television network. Radio and television stations were soon being traded like any other commodity, making a mockery of their status as trustees of the nation's airwaves.

Subsequent money poured into lobbying of (and "donations" to) Congress members would set the stage for passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996—

The result was that a bill profoundly skewed toward powerful interests was passd with hardly any public debate...

Sponsors of the law estimated that deregulation of the cable and telephone industries would save consumers $550 billion over a decade-$333 billion in lower long-distance rates, $32 billion in lower local phone rates, and $78 billion in lower cable bills. Instead, cable rates went up by about 50 percent and local phone rates by more than 20 percent, according to a 2005 study by Common Cause.

Even more devastating for our culture and national discourse was the further evisceration of limits on multiple ownership of broadcast stations. Companies had been limited to owning forty radio stations; the law removed any limits, enabling a company like Clear Channel Communications to own twelve hundred stations around the country. The Common Cause study found that $700 million worth of buying and selling of radio stations occurred the first week after the act became law.

Need the author add? "Higher telephone and cable TV rates, vastly increased concentration of the media, the death of local radio, the homogenization and dumbing down of programming, less broadcast coverage of news—all these emerged from the movement begun by Ronald Reagan, the man they called the Great Communicator."

Just as taking corporate oversight from government would prove "government doesn't work"—and would make sure the government haters stay in charge.

December 2011: Already Under The Tree

This week's done deals:

Continued congressional hostage taking; over basics like unemployment compensation, and with the obligatory "compromise" to be made by Democrats.

"Even a liberal Democrat" endorses pushing Granny and her Medicare over a cliff.

And this development ininstitutionalizing the police state—on the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, no less.

Ebeneezer Scrooge 2011 has the face of Gingrich, Limbaugh, or any prominent Republican. But such greed and sociopathy will not be hindered by a paltry Ghost of Marley. Instead, Idea Man Gingrich can breezily propose child labor for the poor, and Limbaugh can deem hungry children in need of school meals year-round "wanton little waifs and serfs dependent on the state."

And the other team? They went all out, on what Charles Pierce called "National Sellout Day"—

The Democratic party certainly has gone to great lengths... They have made great preparation. They have cooked the goose (their own, naturellement, and ours) and placed it on the table in the traditional manner, with a knife stuck in its back... They have filled the wassail bowl to overflowing with the customary holiday libation, Hot Mulled Blood of Constituent. And later, we will all gather around the fire while our party elders read the famous story. I particularly like the part at the end when Scrooge realizes that reformation has its limits and sells the Cratchit children into indentured servitude so that the other men of the Exchange won't think him weak, or mired in the past.

Pierce also says it: what Americans really want are only the most basic protections—items Not On The Table, much less under the tree—

The American people are not angry at government because people yell at each other and nothing ever gets done. The American people are angry because people yell at each other and nothing the American people really want ever gets done. They want higher taxes on billionnaires. They want Medicare kept out of the hands of the vandals. If they think about it a little, they even like their jurisprudence with a little habeas corpus sprinkled on top. Instead, they get endless platitudes, and the steady, futile placating of an insatiable political opposition.

A Gift For All Seasons

Mr. Charles P. Pierce: not only is he blogging regularly as of late, but he seems to be doing it quite continuously.

This—on Scott Walker and the Wisconsin recall drive—really needs to be read in whole, not quoted.

...But it's too hard to resist a sample; on December 2—

There were new rules in the state capitol that morning. There are new rules in the state capitol of Wisconsin on almost every morning these days. You see, ever since last winter, when Walker rammed through his assault on the state's public workers, touching off a general uprising all over the state, and a specific one outside on his front lawn, many of his fellow citizens have taken to expressing in imaginative ways how much of a walking pustulation they believe their governor is, both inside and outside the capitol building. So, in the interest of not being told to his face what a walking pustulation he is, Walker and his Department of Administration have concocted a veritable symphony of pettiness to drown out the noise....

And this, on Obama's pretty words in Kansas vs. the reality of the 99%—

...In the middle of his lucid exposition of how we of how we got into this mess — and, more important, who got us into this mess — Obama felt obligated to say...

"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren't Democratic values or Republican values. These aren't 1% values or 99% values. They're American values."

Because, among all that's wrong with that picture, "The Republican party gave up on these 'values' the first time they let Arthur Laffer into their corridors of power without handing him a mop and a bucket," Pierce continues—

I regret to inform the president that these actions are necessary specifically because the Republicans — and, alas, too goddamn many Democrats — do not accept the fact that "this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules." I regret to inform the president that, up until recently, not enough Americans believed in those "American values" to get their sorry asses to the polls and elect enough people put those "American values" into action. The people most clearly doing the latter are the people doing it in the streets today.

"You Are America"

1985 item from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/1 President Reagan is honored by friends in the entertainment industry at a black tie event at an NBC studio. Among those paying tribute are Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Emmanuel Lewis and Charlton Heston, who tells the President, "To the world, you are America." Reagan reveals his "dream Cabinet," which would have included Secretary of State John Wayne, Defense Secretary Clint Eastwood and Treasury Secretary Jack Benny.

What, no nutrition post for a Hollywood fundie pal?

Later that month—

12/15 60 Minutes interviews Berkeley professor Michael Rogin, who posits the theory that the President honestly can't tell the difference between movies and reality. The evolution of a Reagan anecdote* is traced from the point where he credits it as a movie scene to the point where he tells it as if it really happened. Viewer response proves this to be one of the least popular segments in the program's 17-year history.

*Some quotes from the show in this 12/85 LA Times review.

Sandwiched between those two bits of media news—

12/9 [Former Reagan employer] General Electric buys RCA (and with it, NBC) for $6.3 billion.