Naming Evil, Ranking Reagan, Going Dutch

Nick Gillespie | June 8, 2004

Over at National Review Online, Reason Contributing Editor John J. Pitney Jr. recounts one of Ronald Reagan's most controversial utterances: calling the Soviet Union the "evil empire."

In a Reason review of Dinesh D'Souza's 1997 Reagan bio, Pitney was a bit tougher on Dutch, writing, "Given all the political constraints, Reagan could not have won a total victory against big government, but he could have done much more. In this respect, free-
market activist Fred Smith got it right: "[T]he Reagan revolution hasn't failed--it really hasn't been tried."

Whole thing here.

And while I'm talking about Reagan, let me give a shout-out to the most-attacked volume about the guy: Edmund Morris' 1999 Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, which was pretty much universally panned, particularly for its fabulist dimension (at various points, Morris inserts a fictive version of himself into the narrative). Yeah, it was a decade overdue, and Morris unfortunately evokes the "raised binding is a giveaway!" caricature on TV, but Dutch is actually a good read and one of the few interesting attempts to get at a character who has famously defied his biographers. That Morris' metafictional conceits were plainly borne out of desperation--he ends the 700 page bio with "Three Poems" inspired by Reagan, including one featuring the line, "We fear our glass will darken when you drown"!--makes them no less interesting.

Comments

|6.8.04 @ 4:32AM|#

Nick's positive review of the Morris book reminds me of someone passing around the tupperware from the back of the fridge so everyone can see how nasty the contents are.

"It smells foul. Here, take a whiff!"

Steve Casburn|6.8.04 @ 8:14AM|#

Nick: I agree about Dutch. Morris glosses over Reagan's politics, but provides invaluable insight into his life and character. He doesn't demonize Reagan or canonize him; he just tries to describe Reagan, and why he attracts and mystifies people.

The faux-first-person narration is a shame, though; unnecessary and rightfully panned. Frankly, I think Morris just got bored with his subject.