I'm old enough to remember the Reagan era well. At the time he was president, his detractors were legion. One of the more epic rants was Gil Scott-Heron's "B Movie," recorded early in Reagan's first term:
Ol' Gil wasn't too fond of Reagan. A sampling of his, ahem, thoughts:
The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can - even if it's only as far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards. And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse - or the man who always came to save America at the last moment - someone always came to save America at the last moment - especially in "B" movies. And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future, they looked for people like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for Ronald Reagan and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at -like a "B" movie.As it happened, the B movie actor was pretty successful, but we didn't necessarily understand it at the time. You heard a lot of Gil Scott-Heron on college campuses in those days, especially mine. We thought his insights were brilliant. Now, 30+ years on, it's clear that while Scott-Heron was pretty full of himself and wrong about the motivations of the man in the White House, he was right about one thing. We do value nostalgia. We want a great man.
The issue is that a great man only becomes visible in retrospect. Not many people really thought Reagan was great while he was in office. It only became clear after he was gone. It was, and is, a lot easier to identify the warts than to see the qualities that lead to greatness. One thing seems clear enough -- if someone comes to you and presents himself, or herself, as a great man, it's likely that he isn't.
3 comments:
Reagan practiced a self deprecating humility. Yet, he spoke with a confidence in his vision and carried himself with class, not the class of the northeast elites, either. The dignified sense of class measured in good manners and proper tone.
You wpuld never see him flip the bird during a speech.)
If i live another 100 yrs, ill never see anothrr president like him.
Gil Scott-Heron also reported that "We Almost Lost Detroit". Turns out he was right - just, not in the way he described it.
What Gino says. One other thing that comes to mind is that Reagan--and some other politicians of the time--were able to speak in complete sentences, not just sound bites. These days, they say five words and just wait for the applause just like the actors in bad sitcoms pause for the laugh track to start, never mind how bad the joke was.
And whenever anyone tells me how great of a speaker Obama is, I know one thing for sure; he's not familiar with Reagan, or Roosevelt, or Kennedy, or any number of the old greats. TOTUS is no substitute for the tempo of delivery.
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