TAKING IDEAS SERIOUSLY:

Ronald Reagan's World: a review of "The Age of Reagan" by Sean Wilentz (RONALD RADOSH, May 29, 2008, NY Sun)

In "The Age of Reagan", Mr. Wilentz seeks to assure his readers that he has strived to lay aside his personal views, and to judge "the past scrupulously" by engaging in "a willing suspension of [his] own beliefs." This reader is glad to report that, in this study of the Reagan presidency and its impact on America, Mr. Wilentz achieves this aim, for the most part — although at times, he does drift into the type of anti-Reagan attacks one heard during the 1980s from Reagan's liberal opponents. Above all, what Mr. Wilentz seeks to do is rescue the real Reagan from what he calls the mythological president offered by supporters on the right and critics on the left. In so doing, he makes judgments that will rankle both.

What will particularly upset many partisan Democrats is Mr. Wilentz's conclusion that Reagan stands with presidents such as Jackson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln as a leader "who for better or worse have put their political stamp indelibly on their time." Moreover, he argues, Reagan deserves credit as a president who took ideas seriously, and more than his immediate predecessors, redefined the politics of the era, thus "reshaping the basic terms on which politics and government would be conducted long after he left office." Mr. Wilentz acknowledges and praises Reagan's optimistic spirit, and the way in which he energized the public and made Americans once again proud of their nation, lifting his countrymen out of the doldrums suffered during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years.

Mr. Wilentz begins his book with a broad overview of the Ford and Carter presidencies. In those years, Democrats depended upon old and outdated bromides. Jimmy Carter won, he suggests, because he broke with the old liberalism. Indeed, he attributes Mr. Carter's slim victory over Ford to his identification with the party's Southern wing, his outsider status in relation to the Beltway crowd, and his being a politician who was clearly not part of the old Humphrey liberal wing. Yet Mr. Carter squandered his opportunity to lead to something new. Instead, he tried to update Wilsonian Southern conservatism, when he might have instead updated and revised liberalism in a way that would grip Americans.

Which had to wait for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, although, strangely, Democratic nominees since have been hellbent on returning to the outdated liberal bromides.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 28, 2008 9:39 PM