Hitch on Reagan

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Hitchens provides a welcome antidote to the Reagan tributes (via Hak Mao):

The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn’t like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.

Comments

  1. James Hamilton Avatar

    Balance is always welcome, but I can’t say I see any in Hitchens’ uncharacteristically one-eyed essay. Reagan’s death seems to have provided him with an opportunity to remind people of his ‘left’ credentials in a period where such opportunities have been few and far between; Hitch can do better than this. I’ve read the Reagan letters recently, and while they do not reveal a man with whom I am in step terribly often, nor do they reveal a phony or a loon.

  2. Solomon Avatar

    Agreed. This is the ugly side of Hitchens, I’m afraid.

  3. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Well yes: Hitchens clearly enjoys his reputation as a contrarian, and here was a golden opportunity to get up a few people’s noses. As an overall assessment of Reagan it’s unfair, but I quite enjoyed it as a counterweight to the general tone of adulation, with Andrew Sullivan for instance referring to Reagan as an intellectual. That “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” is all very fine, but whenever I think of Reagan I can’t help thinking of Oliver North.

  4. Solomon Avatar

    ves me the mental image of Hitchens imbibing a few double scotches down the pub and proceeding directly to his milk-crate at Speaker’s Corner!

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