Tuesday, February 23, 1999
Letters
Think twice before you insult Reagan
This letter is in response to Doug Lief’s column "Saving face"
(Viewpoint, Feb. 22). While I usually much admire Lief’s humor and
witticism, I believe it should be pointed out that he’s not always
right. Now, while I don’t necessarily advocate Reagan being
featured on Mt. Rushmore, I think that the man deserves some degree
of respect, even from us omnipotent, pompous college students.
What’s more, if Lief condemns partisanism, then it would
certainly be a relief if he actually practiced such a virtue. His
cracks about the Republican Party, though admittedly funny, have
nothing to do with Reagan’s personal accomplishments or downfalls,
nor do they hold water for an argument on Salmon’s bill – that is,
after all what Doug is talking about, isn’t it?
I believe Lief’s comments about Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease
were ill-placed and insulting. Would it be too difficult to let the
man die in peace?
Maybe you could spare him a little dignity that used to come
with being a president of the United States, or did Clinton ruin
that one for you? People who support Clinton love to claim that
Slick Willie should stay in office because of "the will of the
people," yet they so conveniently forget that the same will
re-elected Reagan. And if you’re going to be dissing Nancy – have
you looked at Hillary lately?
You seem to forget the main thing that Reagan did for this
country. Everybody loves to talk about economics and Iran and the
debt. Great. Well, in your allusion to Austin Powers and the ’60s,
you forget about – that’s right – the Vietnam War (which two
Democrats got us into, if you don’t remember).
We had two lame duck presidents after Vietnam – Ford and Carter.
Not until Reagan did this country have the leadership to start
getting over that great debacle, and even though everybody still
loves to blame everything on Nixon, it’s Reagan who helped the
country begin to put it behind us.
I have one comment to make on the segregation claim. You are
false on one premise and simply ignore another. You ignore that
President Johnson (these Democrats just seem to keep coming up,
don’t they?) was the guy who allowed segregation to happen in the
first place.
It was the Southern Democrats that had opposed desegregation in
the middle of the century; there were no Republicans in the South
at the time.
In closing, while Lief has painted an amusing and comical
picture about our former president, I believe that his argument
falls far short of being sound.
And though I know that I must sound like I have a gigantic stick
up my ass, I have little tolerance for one’s inability to let an
honorable man die in peace, while conveniently forgetting major
chunks (Lief claims to remember Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union
address, when he was 4, maybe 5 years old at the time), and he does
this all in the name of non-partisan commentary.
Doug Lief, if nothing else, you’re just full of crap.
Adam Pearlman
Pre-political science
First-year
arpearl@ucla.edu
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