American Idolatry

Gotta love the headline of this Salon piece from last April:

Reagan Blasts Bush

Of course, it's the younger Ron Reagan that was doing the blasting, but it's still a must-read. You've got to wonder about the enmity for Bush the Reagan clan seems to have (was I the only one who saw the look of disgust on Nacy's face the other night at the rotunda? First for Hastert and then Cheney?), and how publicly revealed it will be over the coming months.

"The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," he said during a recent interview with Salon. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's -- these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people."

.....

Some observers have compared Bush's persona as an intellectually challenged but politically gifted leader to that of Reagan. But the younger Reagan vehemently rejects the analogy. "The gunslinging cowboy, the actor who just read his lines -- that stereotype doesn't fit who my father really was.

"My father had decades of experience in public life. He was president of his union, he campaigned for presidential candidates, he served two terms as governor of California -- and that was not a ceremonial office as it is in Texas. And he had already run for president, against Ford in '76, nearly unseating the sitting president in his own party. He knew where he was coming from, he had spent years thinking and speaking about his views. He didn't have to ask Dick Cheney what he thought.

"Sure, he wasn't a technocrat like Clinton. But my father was a man -- that's the difference between him and Bush. To paraphrase Jack Palance, my father crapped bigger ones than George Bush."