Word: reaganization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Morris' image of Reagan today, in decline under Alzheimer's, is poignant and surreal. "He will rake leaves from the pool for hours, not understanding that they are being surreptitiously replenished by his Secret Service men." When Reagan acknowledged his ailment in 1994, many who had been struck by his odd driftiness during the White House years began to wonder whether it had been the disease beginning its assault on his brain. Morris is adamant in opposing that view. "To those readers who will seize on this as evidence of incipient dementia in the White House, I reply...
Maybe, but Reagan was, by the accounts of those who worked most closely with him, one of the most passive and incurious men to ever occupy the Oval Office. During his first term, one of his closest advisers swore that on his own, Reagan could not have found the office of the White House chief of staff. Morris' reconstruction of the Iran-contra scandal paints a devastating picture of a floundering and uncomprehending Chief Executive...
What set Morris off on his risky, semi-fictional path? The author was seriously late in delivering his book and anguished about writer's block and his inability to get to the core of Reagan. Perhaps it was the arrogance of the intellectual who cannot make himself believe that a person with an ordinary mind can be a powerful leader. Perhaps it was the need do something different with Reagan's life, to justify the big advance and the long delay in producing the book...
...historical sleight of hand has one virtue, aside from creating commercially valuable buzz. Trying to thread one's way through what is made up and what is real in this book is not unlike being around the actual Reagan, who invented statistics, replayed movie plots as if they were history and answered questions with such bewildering non sequiturs that interrogators were stunned into silence. This biography could have been called Zelig Meets Chauncey Gardner...
Morris is also a brilliant writer--of both fact and fiction. His stylishness is so dazzling that the reader may want to forgive the manipulation he has employed. Again, this re-creates the experience of being around Reagan, who was so deeply likeable as a human being that even the most querulous reporter could be charmed into protecting him from his own vacuousness...