In this Financial Times column, How Reagan ruined conservatism, Gideon Rachman belittles Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. It’s one thing to criticize the actions and/or policies of others, but this urge to attack their intelligence is as weak as it is tiresome.
So, here follows my letter to the editor taking Rachman to task — a letter the Financial Times refused to print! Well, actually, it is long for a letter to the editor. And the FT did publish another letter criticizing Rachman. Never mind.
(I guess I was just having a flashback to when I edited an editorial page and not publishing a letter could lead to cries of Censorship! Or, if a sentence was corrected so it made some sense the author would call and claim the meaning of the entire letter was changed.)
Sir, (this is how the FT formats its letters) It’s fascinating how some people resort to criticizing others by denigrating their intelligence, as in Mr. Rachman’s March 2 column belittling Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. However, this approach almost always says more about those using it than those they target.
To say “Reagan was apparently stupid and often startling ignorant,” even if Rachman used snippets from a sympathetic biography of Reagan as evidence, is childish. Looking back at Reagan’s life, his speeches, writings and accomplishments, his charges are absurd.
Rachman concedes, as if an afterthought, that Reagan “was vindicated by history.” But it’s a backhanded compliment to set his next target.
It’s incredible Palin survives considering the obvious and blatant media attacks — driven more by condescension than facts — she has endured and continues to receive. Rachman’s use of a tell-all, inside-baseball book on the last presidential campaign, fueled by, at least in part, political hangers-on looking to vindicate themselves, is a poor choice for unbiased information on Palin.
Returning to Reagan, Rachman mischaracterizes and discounts the late president’s efforts and beliefs regarding tax-rate cuts and budget deficits. Initially, tax receipts were expected to decrease with rate cuts. However, they, along with tough Fed policy, were considered necessary to get the struggling economy back on its feet. But, as the economy did indeed pick up steam, tax receipts rose; the Laffer curve worked.
There is also plenty of blame to go around, then and now, regarding budget deficits – always a function of too much spending – but Rachman ignores the role Democrats played in rejecting Reagan’s budgets as they sought spending.
Besides, just the day before on the same page, Andrew Scott argued that the massive debt on government books today, and expected in the future, was appropriate for what we have experienced the last two years, and manageable. So, would Rachman consider Scott, a London Business School professor of economics, stupid?
Regarding the requisite Bush bashing, let’s just say it is easy now, with Saddam Hussein long gone and a transformed Iraq in place, to call the war there “unnecessary.”
And though Rachman rejects the “axis of evil” as a “silly concept,” the world remains struggling with these (remaining two) countries as they continue to sponsor terrorism, subvert freedom and encourage nuclear proliferation.
I suspect history will vindicate Bush, too.
