SHORTLY AFTER the narrative begins, Rachel Maddow offers a silly little piece of ancient text.
Why in the world would anyone be interested in the 1973 moment when Congress set out to write “A Joint Resolution Concerning the War Powers of Congress and the President”? Directing that “to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States” Congress and nobody else, that means nobody, certainly not the Executive Branch, had the power to declare war.
Any story that starts with the War Powers Resolution in 1973 is automatically headed in one direction: Ronald Reagan’s legacy.
So how did Rachel Maddow get away with targeting Ronald Reagan without it bothering anyone? She titled her book Drift then set out by using John Wayne against him to launch her first salvo.
During the Panama Canal debate, Carter took over where Ford left off, with both parties agreeing on it, joined by William F. Buckley and the tough guy’s tough guy, John Wayne, both endorsing Carter’s treaty too.
Even after John Wayne sent Reagan a private and personal note offering to show him “point by goddam point in the treaty where you are misinforming people,” and offering fair warning that it was time for the Gipper to shut his piehole (“If you continue to make these erroneous remarks, someone will publicize your letter to prove that you are not as thorough in your reviewing this treaty as you say or are damned obtuse when it comes to reading the English language”), Ronald Reagan doubled down. – Drift, by Rachel Maddow [page 33]
Maddow focuses on the “Unmooring of American Military Power,” with an easily digestible portion on the Gipper that strips him of all veneer that he was anything close to what the myth makers have fictionalized. That Ronald Reagan deserved to be impeached for Iran-Contra has always been clear to a good section of people who lived through the era, myself included, with the cumulative case Maddow makes on Reagan’s presidency making the reader believe it was a miracle he wasn’t.
That is, until those who haven’t met the main character are introduced, which also puts a lot of recent history into context, too.
As the main author of the minority’s 145-page written dissent from the congressional investigation of Iran-Contra, Wyoming Representative Dick Cheney insisted, radically, that Iran-Contra was no crime, that Reagan was right to defy Congress, because there was nothing in Congress, nothing anywhere in America’s political structure, that could constrain a president from waging any war he wanted, however he wanted. – Drift, by Rachel Maddow [page 124]
Rachel Maddow’s Drift is a compact unpacking that attacks the deluded notion that Ronald Reagan was anything but a remarkably talented spokesperson with a sunny disposition who came a long at the perfect moment in time. From there Maddow peels back one reason the two-party collusion on how our military industrial complex got to where it is today. It’s not the whole history, but it’s enough to inform the latest generation of new voters on who Reagan was so they don’t fall for the drivel being pumped into the American blood stream, which will be on overload this week if the Republican convention ever lifts off.
The case against Ronald Reagan has been made many times before, I’ve done it around here, but in a bite size book that’s so easily digested, with facts about our military build-up and the abuse of U.S. forces by our politicians, but also the private defense industry, it makes it very hard for anyone to whine about the facts, especially when she begins the book with the founders.
Quoting Thomas Jefferson from the top, invoking his famous pledge to “never keep an unnecessary soldier,” Maddow grabs people interested in military matters, no matter their political bent. Tea Party patriot, constitutionalists, liberals and progressives who want less international misadventurism, everyone pays attention when our fathers speak.
It’s how we got from World War II to the contagion of tours of duty that is prompting historic levels of soldier suicides, fractured families and lives, which is so chilling, which Maddow covers poignantly, with Ronald Reagan the diabolical master at mustering the masses to his “peace through strength” whisper that changed conservatism forever. One of the most important ways the two political parties rally their troops is behind a good war, the next battle, which has turned into a private business we export whenever it’s needed and used whenever a politician has nothing else.
We all built this system.
Ronald Reagan had a lot to do with it and finally he gets the credit he deserves. But not in the way your average American might anticipate.
The real beauty of this book is Maddow’s systematic myth-stripping of the man the Republican Party has wanted to resurrect for years and will celebrate this week through the resurrection of the fiction that is Ronald Reagan in the Republicans Party‘s collective mind that can now be seen through Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan.
TM note: I was sent this book by Crown, Rachel Maddow’s publisher. It just took finding the right moment to feature a review.
Will Dick Cheney ever leave us, will we ever be rid of him; apparently not. Modern medicine has given us the everlasting gift of Cheney forever. We shall forever be poisoned by his fowl and rancid breath. He walks among us, the living dead which refuses to die. He is the antichrist who will forever remind us of our ignoble deeds; our embrace of endless war, torture and corruption. Like Lucifer, he has been around a long time, quietly working in the shadows, against all that is good in the world. We as a people shall be denied his trial and punishment. Whatever Reagan was, or wasn’t, I would sell my soul to the devil for the gift of Reagan being alive and Cheney being dead.
I just finished lamenting our national priorities again. Probably as good a time as any to ask ourselves if we can’t change them somehow.
And Bill Clinton WAS Impeached for a BJ.
You’d almost think that we’d rather find ways to waste our time, than to deal with the real problems we face.
You know, secularh, that is still something that is truly remarkable.
Remember, however, that the predicate was lying under oath, which is what upset a lot of people. It reminds you of Nixon, it’s always the cover-up.
“Remember, however, that the predicate was lying under oath”
I remember making a remark at the time about how he better lie if he didn’t want Hillary to break his neck. My husband who is an extremely honest man said he’d lie too because he knows what I’d do to him if he ever pulled that kind of nonsense. LOL
Most men would lie in that situation, I think. Not only is there the consideration about what would happen if the missus found out, but the question he lied about had nothing to do with the subject of Starr’s investigation. There wasn’t even a chance to consider the consequences beforehand and decide.
That whole episode was disgraceful, and the disgrace was largely the GOP’s.
Ronald Reagan is one of the most respected Presidents. He is extremely popular now, just as he was when he was President. It is not becasue the majority of Americans are ignorant and misinformed about him that he is so well loved.
Educated Americans and people who really know about Ronald Reagan and lived throguh his Presidency will buy into this authors revisionist view. This is a book on obscuring the facts.
Ah, yes, the famous “You’re all just poopyheads and nobody likes you” defense. Socrates would be proud. Love the use of that Twentieth Century rhetorical flourish “revisionist”, BTW.
Oh, and I just grabbed me a copy of the <A HREF=”http://archive.org/download/reportofcongress87unit/reportofcongress87unit.pdf”>Iran-Contra report</A> (a long, long PDF of the document that was scanned, and thus not necessarily searchable, depending on your viewer’s capabilities) and started reading the minority report. It really is a fascinating work of fiction.
That point, at least, is definitely not “revisionist”.
1.”Ronald Reagan is one of the most respected Presidents. He is extremely popular now, just as he was when he was President.”
Sorry to burst your bubble but Ronnie ReagunZAP isn’t even among the top TEN most rerspected Presidents.
2.”It is not becasue the majority of Americans are ignorant and misinformed about him that he is so well loved.”
He is so well loved he isn’t even among the top ten?
3.”Educated Americans and people who really know about Ronald Reagan and lived throguh his Presidency will buy into this authors revisionist view. This is a book on obscuring the facts.”
They won’t “buy into” anything…they will have experienced the corruption and lawlessness of the Reagan years and recognize the truth RM highlights.
I haven’t yet read Maddow’s book but from everything I’ve read, it’s a fair and excellent analysis of War and American Military power as well as of Ronald Reagan. I have it on my top 10 books to read. From what I understand, even Roger Ailes, who worked for Nixon and is hardly a liberal, praised Maddow in a blurb for the book. Ailes wrote:
People who like Rachel will love the book. People who don’t will get angry, but aggressive debate is good for America. Drift is a book worth reading.
I also listened to her on cpan when she was promoting “Drift” and she impressed me with her knowledge and her presentation was first rate and not in the least partisan which was very welcome. I wish she were less so on her show.
I recently re-watched ”Why We Fight” and was once again rivited by this “must watch” film. It is an honest and unflinching look at the military industrial complex and the rise of the American Empire. The film covers 50 years of American military adventures. It was inspired by Dwight Eisenhower’s legendary farewell POTUS speech in 1961 in which he coined the phrase “military industrial complex” and warned Americans that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.” He said, “we recognize the imperative need for this development … the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist … Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
The film examines various American military operations to the deeper questions of why does America fight? What are the forces – political, economic and ideological – that drive us to fight. It seems that Rachel Maddow’s book, “Drift” is a great companion piece to this film. So, I’m looking forward to reading it.
There is nothing more potent for Republicans or more appealing to them than the mythology of Ronald Reagan. The failed economic policies of Reganomics and the fiasco of Iran-Contra are topics that most clearly demonstrate the distance between right-wing fantasy and historical reality.
Reagan may be the most over rated POTUS since Truman. A lot of why he is popular is because of the image he and his handlers, kept alive by the GOP for obvious reasons, put out there mostly having nothing to do with the truth. And, sympathy from the American public after his assassination attempt and for his being ill goes a long way to explain it. I remember those Reagan days, just out of college, being fortunate enough to get a scholarship to grad school in 1982 because the economy was so bad and didn’t pick up until the mid 1980′s, jobs were scant. And, Reaganomics or as Daddy Bush coined the term “Vodoo Economics” was a failure. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before and the poverty rate had actually risen.
His misadventure in and with Iran-Contra was not only a foreign policy embarrassment but led to a constitutional crisis because it revealed a “shadow government,” operating without public knowledge or congressional approval, being run out of the White House. And, Reagan should have been run out of the White House, impeached for this and for lying under oath. And, if Clinton was impeached for lying under oath for a BJ but Reagan wasn’t impeached for lying under oath for a serious breach of his powers speaks volumes about how far the modern GOP will go to wipe out it’s domestic enemies for inconsequential behavior whilst the modern Dems lack gestational fortitude, guts, to do the same, even when the matter is deadly serious (as they failed a second time when Pelosi took impeachment off the table for Bush). And, Reagan’s behavior and those of his subordinates like Oliver North was not only not inconsequential but included repeated violations of the statute forbidding aid to regimes that support terrorism.
The Reagan mythology can be debunked as easily as the mythology of big foot. At least, one can get laughs out of the latter. There’s nothing remotely humorous about the former.