Time to revive those swirling rumors about adding Ronald Reagan’s likeness to Mount Rushmore?
Remember when a politically ambitious Republican congressman from Arizona sought to introduce legislation bringing Reagan’s face to the national memorial’s quartet of 60-foot-tall presidential phizzes carved from rock? And then ultra-conservative lobbyist, er, loyalist Grover Norquist echoed those sentiments? They really believe Ronald Reagan was the 20th century’s greatest president and, as such, deserved to be the fifth great stone face on Mount Rushmore, that granite “Shrine of Democracy” in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Fortunately, initial reaction from park officials was cautious. No more room on that mountain for nary a zit. Otherwise, that project would cost skillions of dollars.
“Wake up! Many, many Americans think Reagan was the greatest president,” said Joey A., my Philadelphia artisan-philosopher pal. “Why great? Well, he’s credited with ending the Cold War.” Oh, I see, and whipping the air-traffic controllers, and looking the other way about Nancy’s fling with Frank Sinatra. Like that. Not bad for the star of “Bedtime for Bonzo.”
Predictably, after leaving office, Reagan’s reputation received a major burnishing by historians, the same way Richard Nixon retrospectively “became” a statesman. Crikey, didn’t Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis admit to me in an exclusive interview that, yes, her dad napped on the job? Though his revisionist biographers insisted that wasn’t napping, but some esoteric Zen management technique to elicit wisdom from his advisers!
“… I picked up ‘The Common Sense of an Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom, and Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan,’ thinking it had to be one of those parodies, like quotations from Chairman Mao,” Joey A. reported in stunned disbelief, “but it was … totally serious. Reagan’s take on This. Reagan’s take on That!!”
Well, Reagan was the Great Communicator, wasn’t he.
As of June 5, 2004, the day of his death at age 93, Amazon Books listed 15,301 Ronald Reagan titles, from the mildly reverential to the fawningly worshipful. What could possibly eclipse Dinesh D’Souza’s “Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader,” which, the blurb says, “rates America’s 40th president as one of its greatest, right below Washington and Lincoln.” Unless it’s “How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life,” by Peter Robinson, which Publishers Weekly labeled “an All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten for right-wingers,” listing such profound maxims as “Do your work,” and “Say your prayers.”
A few years ago, I bumped into a contrarian Jersey antiques dealer who actually admitted purchasing a signed Reagan biography for her boyfriend’s birthday. “I’m not the Reagan fan. He is,” she confided, speculating how much the tome would be worth after his death.
Well, yes.
Time to pay a virtual revisit to Mount Rushmore, immortalized by some Web wag as (groan) “the four most famous guys in rock.” Forgive the predictably gushy prose: “This epic sculpture links the faces of four exalted American presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.” Honestly, I’m not sure I ever thought of Ronald Reagan as either epic or exalted. True, he never projectile-vomited in the lap of Japan’s prime minister, as the first George Bush did while supposedly under a voodoo spell. But that’s not exactly my personal definition of exaltation.
Not everyone’s feeling bereaved. “I’ve disconnected the TV in an effort to dodge the
product of the electronic manure-spreader. Robert Novak and (Roy Cohn’s once-upon-a-time fiancee) Barbara Walters led off with their spew of self-righteous sentimentality and craven name-dropping. It won’t be safe to go out for 3 days. Nancy’s changing her dress every 15 minutes,” opines my pal the progressive speechwriter and magazine editor. “His greatest achievement? Taxing Social Security. That’s what he should be remembered for. Next time the Republicans start blabbing about their tax cuts, mention that. Something none of them has ever expressed the slightest wish to repeal. Reagan was vile.”
Alas, reaction from an array of Netizens, names changed for privacy, proves equally mixed.
NellieRaven: Reagan died.
DDTGuy: Not crying here.
NellieRaven: I guess this will be on television continuously for the next week. I may unplug mine.
HelenHey: Poor old Nancy.
NellieRaven: The loonies on the right will want to change the name of our country to Reaganville.
Whoa, Nelllie. Let’s compromise. Wouldn’t Ronald Reagan’s likeness be just fine in the scrub pine at the base of that Hollywood sign, doncha think? Here’s what I recommend: installing a tribute to Ronald Reagan – a giant Bobble-Head sculpture – in the Hollywood hills, his erstwhile happy hunting grounds.
