New Book Burns Down the Church of Ronald Reagan

Ed Jackson has been following the Reagan Legacy Project for years and is ecstatic about the new book by author Will Bunch, Tear Down This Myth, exposing the right wing's scheme to convince the world that Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.

The right-wing is hellbent on insuring Ronald Reagan's position "in the pantheon of great leaders of the 20th century." They aren't going to do it by having Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed leader of the conservative movement, convince the mindless masses (they call themselves "dittoheads") that Reagan was the greatest thing since sliced white bread. To implement their diabolical plan they launched the Reagan Legacy Project so that, according to a young conservative quoted in Bunch's book, "Someone 30 to 40 years from now who may never have heard of Reagan will be forced to ask himself, 'Who was this man to have so many things named after him?'".

The group was started in 1997 by, among others, uber-conservative lobbyer Grover Norquist when the right realized they hadn't had a high-stature, widely popular president since Abraham Lincoln. They have repeatedly failed to produce a leader who would inspire the nation. So, because one has not emerged based solely on the veracity of their political philosophy, the Project is doing a little historical revisionism and manufacturing a fairy tale in which Ronald Reagan is the political right's heroic knight in shining armor. Bunch writes the folks at the Legacy Project recognized that, " ... powerful symbols can mean a lot more than words (especially in a little-read policy journal), that a motorist under the big Sunbelt sky of Ronald Reagan Boulevard will absorb the message of the Gipper’s greatness without ever pondering if ketchup should be a vegetable in federally funded school lunches or if 'the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers' in Central America were drug-dealing thugs ... "

Don't like the truth? Then just make up a bunch of shit and say it over and over again until everyone believes it. Don't have a great president? Pick a mediocre one who was moderately popular and turn him into a national icon. It's a move straight out of the right-wing playbook. They have no new ideas.


"Give them tax cuts," the right's response to everything, has become the modern day version of, "Let them eat cake." So when they needed to figure out how they could pull off this con they looked around and said, "Gee, look at all the stuff named after John F. Kennedy, Abe Lincoln, and FDR. The nation must have loved those guys. Dude! We should name a bunch of stuff after Ronald Reagan. Then everyone will think he was great also."

The Legacy Project wants to slap Reagan's name on, " ... significant public landmarks ... in the 50 states and over 3,000 counties of the United States ... " I'm sure Reagan would have totally supported the idea of a bunch of "inside-the-beltway" posers telling local governments what to do with their limited resources.

The Project boasts about successfully renaming National Airport after Reagan, something that would make the airport, " ... a weekly thumb in the eye of the Yankee elites who were still belittling the aging Gipper’s presidency." They renamed the Florida State Turnpike after Reagan, and that's about it so far. I wanted to be able to blame the next examples on the right-wingers at the Legacy Project but I couldn't find a direct link. Nonetheless, they make the following points:

- The largest (2nd only to the Pentagon) and most expensive civilian federal building in the world is the Ronald Reagan Building and Federal Trade Center in Washington, DC.

- The USS Ronald Reagan is a Nimitz-class nuclear powered "super" aircraft carrier, one of the largest capital ships in the world. They brought her in $2.5 billion over budget and delivered her at least a year late. Reagan would have been so proud.

One day 30 or 40 years from now, someone will see Reagan's name emblazoned on the building and think, "The Ronald Reagan building is a monolithic example of unchecked government excess and a waste of taxpayer dollars."

Bunch writes about the Project's brazen audacity stating, "All the sweetness and yuks masked a somewhat startling fact — that by enshrining a national myth about Reagan so soon after his presidency, while he was still alive (albeit incapacitated), and for purposes that were essentially partisan in nature, Norquist, Kamburowski and their powerful and growing list of conservative allies were pulling off a maneuver that was unprecedented in American history. Other presidents and leaders had surely been mythologized — a walk from Norquist’s office near K Street to the National Mall would show that — but not while they were still living, or in a manner so blatantly calculated in the very spirit of a presidency built around effective public relations."

Don't underestimate the determination of Norquist and the Project. Bunch writes that Norquist told the Baltimore Sun, “[Reagan] deserves a monument like the Jefferson or the FDR — or the Colossus at Rhodes! National Airport is a good place to start.” They've also mentioned putting Reagan on Mount Rushmore. And, the same young conservative said, “The left has been far better at rewriting history. Conservatives just haven't paid that much attention to this kind of thing.”

So keep your eyes peeled. There is a big government, boondoggle with Ronald Reagan's name on it coming to a street near you.

To find out more:

NPR - "Will Bunch: Tearing Down The Reagan 'Myth'"

Salon - "How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan"

LA Times - "Obama, be like Reagan"

Huffington Post - "Obama's Inauguration Could do With Less Reagan, More (Gasp) Carter"

If you want to hear the flip side from the editor of the Reagan Diaries click here. Never let it be said that I don't present both sides.