Saturday, June 5, 2004
Here is a lengthy New York Times obituary: The New York Times: Reagan Had Long Struggle With Alzheimer's Disease. NE Republican has a nice picture.
I've gone through several transformations with regard to my feelings toward Ronald Reagan. When I was younger, for a very short time, I liked Ronald Reagan - perhaps mostly as a simple reaction against some of the hippie-type older kids. It was a way of tweaking them. Then, as I became one of the older kids, it was the punk culture that took hold, and that was all Reagan-hate. Soon it was off to college, and sometime around that period I fell in with the view of Reagan as a boob, the guy with the jelly-beans on his desk, a dodderer, a fool, a war-monger, a soulless dupe of big-business ready to kill us all in a nuclear war (you don't suppose I had started to read some Chomsky at that point do you?). Iran-Contra didn't help, and I still consider that episode a stain on my feelings toward the Reagan legacy.
It's taken a long time for me to come around on the old guy - mostly in the past couple of years. But I have come around.
Alzheimer's is a terrible thing. I watched a grandparent decline and pass away long before her body ever actually gave up. It is the kind of disease that has children praying for their parents' deaths. A terrible thing indeed.
Rest in Peace, President Reagan.
Update: Ghost of a Flea has a link roundup and some good quotes.
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