“It’s one of those ineluctable patterns in American political culture. As I wrote in 2004 upon Ronald Reagan’s death: “each generation of nonconservatives sees the right-wingers of its own generation as the scary ones, then chooses to remember the right-wingers of the last generation as sort of cuddly. In 1964, observers horrified by Barry Goldwater pined for the sensible Robert Taft, the conservative leader of the 1950s. When Reagan was president, liberals spoke fondly of sweet old Goldwater. Nowadays, as we grapple with the malevolence of President Bush, it’s Reagan we remember as the sensible one.” As, thus, does Robert Dole: in today’s Republican Party, “Reagan wouldn’t have made it.” And now, like clockwork, Bob Dole volunteers Bob Dole as the cuddly one, thereby basking in the pundits’ lionization of Bob Dole. Bob Dole!”
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Laugh of the Week: Bob Dole as a Tribune of Civility | The Nation (via dendroica)
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Ronald Reagan was a lot of things, but sensible wasn’t one of them.
Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities »
