WALL TO WALL REAGAN WORSHIP
Dispelling the Mountain of Myths

Getting a bit dazed by television's non-stop praise of our fortieth President? Here are some smelling salts to bring you back to your senses.

First, from the Washington Post via the Houston Chronicle, political analyst Jim Hoagland on how Reagan "won the Cold War":

Let's not airbrush the Reagan portrait

Perhaps this is how contemporary history is made or, in the electronic era, mismade and distorted. Reagan's growing reputation as the great victor in the Cold War who made Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall depends on looking at Reagan and his times through the light cast by subsequent events.

The craving by Americans for uncluttered heroism — for what is seen in retrospect as the order and clarity of the Cold War — also powers this yearning for a near-mythical transformation of Reagan's death into a moment to sweep aside the dread and anguish of the wars in Iraq and against al-Qaida.

Yes, winners always write the history. But it is dangerously easy today to make the leap from that news footage of Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to concluding that he came to office with a master plan to make victory in the Cold War inevitable. As one television executive said to me not long ago, "Today, history is what we say it is."

To one who covered many of the key international events of that day, Reagan seemed in fact to come late to a realistic view of the Soviet Union and the world, and — like most presidents — to have improvised furiously and not always successfully in foreign affairs.

Click here for the rest.

And President Reagan does, indeed, deserve credit for eventually figuring out that diplomacy is much less about black and white sloganeering and much more about hard nosed pragmatism. Unlike our current President.

Moral clarity, my ass.

And from the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton, economist Paul Krugman blasts the "Reaganomics" that have become the conventional economic wisdom of today:

An Economic Legend

Here's a sample version of the legend: according to a recent article in The Washington Times, Ronald Reagan "crushed inflation along with left-wing Keynesian economics and launched the longest economic expansion in U.S. history." Actually, the 1982-90 economic expansion ranks third, after 1991-2001 and 1961-69 — but even that comparison overstates the degree of real economic success.

The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment.

The depressed economy in 1982 also explains "Morning in America," the economic boom of 1983 and 1984. You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump. (Last year, Argentina's economy grew more than 8 percent.)

And the economic expansion under President Reagan did not validate his economic doctrine. His supply-side advisers didn't promise a one-time growth spurt as the economy emerged from recession; they promised, but failed to deliver, a sustained acceleration in economic growth.

Inflation did come down sharply on Mr. Reagan's watch: it was running at 12 percent when he took office, but was only 4.5 percent when he left. But this victory came at a heavy price. For much of the Reagan era, the economy suffered from very high unemployment. Despite the rapid growth of 1983 and 1984, over the whole of the Reagan administration the unemployment rate averaged a very uncomfortable 7.5 percent.

In other words, it all played out just as "left-wing Keynesian economics" predicted.

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Just for the record, my own economic views tend toward "left-wing Keynesian economics" or, more simply, demand-side economics. It is important to note that the great US economic expansion from the late 1940s through the 1960s was shepherded by Keynsian economists. Alas, most economists today are completely caught up in neo-liberal economics, which was known back in the 80s as "Reaganomics." Unfortunately, neo-liberalism is a bunch of bullshit, which, by and large, simply serves as a justification to screw the poor while making love to the rich.

Rich people supporting neo-liberalism I can understand. What still perplexes me to no end is the way that so many middle and working class people support neo-liberal views as well. Go figure.

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