October 22, 2004
DEJA VU:
Bush critics also hit at Reagan (ALFRED BALITZER, 10/23/04, The Japan Times)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry criticizes President George W. Bush for "going it alone in Iraq," for failing to build the support of the United Nations and for failing to build an international coalition of America's traditional allies.Bush is not the first president to fill the sting of these accusations. America's elite media and intellectual class used them repeatedly to indict the foreign policies of his father and President Ronald Reagan.
Even as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stood at Reagan's side, Reagan was frequently accused of "going it alone." John Oakes, senior editor of The New York Times, pointed the finger at Reagan for substituting "a mindless militarism for a foreign policy . . . frightening our friends from Japan to West Germany." Strobe Talbott, a prominent foreign affairs columnist for Time Magazine who subsequently became deputy secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, criticized Reagan's "instinctive predilection for unilateral" efforts in foreign policy.
The similarities in the criticism of Reagan and Bush do not stop here. Detractors mocked Reagan as they do Bush now for his "swagger," accusing him of being a cowboy, a yahoo from the West, whose lack of intelligence and sophistication showed itself in the failure to grasp the subtleties of foreign policy.
In fact, both Reagan and Bush broke new ground in foreign policy, much to the chagrin of the elite media and left intellectual circles, whose liberalism masks a conservative bias when it comes to foreign policy.
Reagan horrified the media and the intellectual class by abandoning the decades-old policy of containing the Soviet Union for one that aimed at bringing it down, while Bush put shivers up their spines after 9/11 with the doctrine of preemptive action. Reagan acted with moral clarity, focused determination and boldness as does Bush. By contrast, the media and intellectual class emphasize "shades of gray" thinking, foreign-policy complexities and maintenance of the status quo.
Senator Kerry even made all those inane criticisms twenty years ago. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 22, 2004 8:51 PM
Thank you, oj. Just when we Westerners start to doubt our memory, you cite the evidence that proves us right. We always suspected that this major media theme of George Bush being the most divisive and hated President ever was BS. After all, we knew and loved Ronald Reagan. And nobody loathed Ronald Reagan like the New York Times. Or the Washington Post, for that matter.
For the reasons they loathe him, we love him.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at October 23, 2004 4:36 AMExactly. When all the elites wailed and fumed in 1982-83 about Reagan and missiles in Europe, the public saw something quite different. And when KAL 007 was shot down, the elites tried to follow Sy Hersh, but he was so full of dung, his argument went nowhere.
I will always remember Henry Steele Commager's statement that Reagan's speech at Westminster ("the ash heap of history") was the worst ever delivered by an American President.
Commager, of course, was representing Harvard.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 23, 2004 8:28 AMBingo.
I was explaining to someone yesterday that hatred alone for a candidate will not win an election. The left hated Nixon and he waxed McGovern in 1972. The left and elites loathed Reagan in the 1980's. I recall hearing "cowboy" and "moron" and "idiot" and "unintellectual" and "war monger" a couple of times in the 1980's. Reagan just destroyed Mondale in 1984. You could even say that the right hated Clinton in 1996 and he did pretty well.
Posted by: pchuck at October 23, 2004 9:42 AM