I happened to be out on an errand and listening to NPR when I heard about the death of President Reagan. I then had to suffer through some 10 minutes of an interview with former reporter and Reagan “biographer” Haynes Johnson, who found ways to sneer at the Reagan legacy without being, as was suggested, “tasteless.” It was tasteful, but clearly critical.
I did find it powerful to think about the fact that Reagan’s passing was just hours before the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day. In 1975, Reagan wrote this in one of his radio commentaries (thanks to Reagan, In His Own Hand for the text):
The leaders of [the WWII generation] saw the growing menace and talked of it but reacted to the growing military might of Germany with anguished passiveness. Will it be said of today’s world leaders as it was of the pre-WWII leaders: “They were better at surviving the catastrophe than they were at preventing it”?
Reagan was writing about those unwilling to confront and if possible roll back the Soviet menace. He might as well have been talking about certain timid politicians during today’s war for Western survival.
