Mark Hertsgaard, �On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency�
Ok, current review (well, more current anyway) means work-related haiku.
Three hundred pound man.
Two hundred bucks in cook books
Perhaps food IS love.
That�s about as deep as it gets around here. Sorry.
Since I�m reviewing a book about the how Reagan got it easy from the press corps due to a renewed patriotic fervor from the hoi polloi, perhaps this would be a good time to ask people to remind me not to wear my �merican flag boxer shorts when I go to the bar, as I insist on wearing them backward even though nobody can actually see what I�ve done. What this means is that I�m shifting and holding and fumbling over the urinal looking like I can�t find my own dick.
Anyhoo, from the title this would seem to be the most boring book to read. I certainly had that reaction from various people who stopped to ask what I was reading. I�m certain many have had this experience � you�re sitting at a bar or coffee shop, depending on the position of the sun, and somebody sits next to you. They didn�t bring a book, or perhaps they can�t read, so they interrupt your reading. Since they can�t think of anything to start out a conversation, they ask you about what you were reading, before they felt the need to interrupt.
Bill Hicks put it best, and with the most truth because more often than not, the question isn�t �What you readin�?� Rather, it�s �What you readin� for?�
So I don�t end up bumming change outside a coffee house when I reach your age. It also works well as a shield for crazy people who are trying to bum change. Not that it always works.
In any case, I got stopped several times for whatever reason while reading this particular book. It could be that the conversation ended because I simply held up the title so they could see what I was reading and then dove back into it. But in most cases, it seemed like they saw what it was about and didn�t have any thing to contribute, and so went looking for conversation (or spare change) elsewhere.
That seemed odd to me, after all, Reagan is the one presided where people seem to have an opinion, and almost all of it is positive. In just two decades, people forgot all the illegalities, invasions, and massive frauds, instead remembering how nice he was.
Hertsgaard puts a lot of that at the hands of the press. Journalism schools filled with budding Woodstein�s after Watergate, but nobody could come up with anything substantive. After Ford and Carter, people were sick of reporters digging for dirt and coming up with nothing. Add the fact that Reagan was old and jolly, and the public began to balk whenever press leaned toward negative coverage.
Jumping Jesus folks, it�s the fucking fourth estate. They�re supposed to look for the negative aspects, not be cheerleaders!
But the fact of the matter, according to Hertsgaard, and he backs up his points here, is that the press did give him a relatively easy ride, partly due to public indignities, and partly because they actually liked him too. And this is where what looks like a really boring, academic book turns into a pointing fingers gossip-fest.
And it�s glorious.
Nearly every reporter, every editor, every publisher and every staff member of Reagan�s staff admit that Reagan got what has to be the closest free ride since FDR in the wheelchair. What�s better is the media, all of whom will say something along the lines of, �Well, I wouldn�t say that we gave him a free ride, but other networks/publications/reporters certainly seemed to soft-pedal around him.�
It�s the friendships between Reagan and the Reagan staff that�s the most fascinating. I know from I.F. Stone�s dictum that newspapers should have no friends, but I have to admit, working on a campus paper at a relatively small school, it was hard not to. So when I found out that the student president of the college, a girl who I had been to bars and functions with and was on good terms, had misappropriated funds for a student government function, spending her entire budget for the year on one outing, I made a personal call. She didn�t know why I was there.
�Look,� I told her, �We�ve been friends for a while. But you know me, and you know what kind of stories I go after. I get people in trouble. That�s my job.�
She looked at me evenly, trying to remain aloof.
�You�re in trouble,� I said finally.
She stopped hanging out with me after the story was printed.
Said it before: Reporters are scum.
Good for them. Now if they�d just knock it off with the softball approach and the idiotic stories.
