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Jun. 10th, 2004 08:18 amabsurdly enough, there was a little soundbite on the radio this morning of dick cheney eulogizing ronald reagan as "an idealist". what ideals would those be? not mentioning aids? trying to quietly legislate ketchup into vegetable status? hm. also someone else praising reagan for triumphing over "the evil empire" of the soviet union. and yeah, i know we thought about things like that back then, but was it really necessary to use that phrase today?
also on npr was a very interesting discussion with two different individuals, one (a white american) who worked on reagan's campaigns in the 70s, and one (a black american) who is now a professor of african-american and american studies. the campaign guy was fairly nostalgic; the professor spoke of how reagan's foreign policy supported apartheid, and how he once made a campaign stop in an extremely tiny town in georgia (?) which was obscure save for the fact that three people had been lynched there. he proceeded to make a speech about "states' rights", which the professor pointed out was code-speak at the time for rolling back integration laws and other such niceties. i think he mentioned the ketchup, too, but i was pretty struck by that story.
we caught a few minutes of the processional coverage on tv last night: i think nancy reagan looked pretty humiliated, paraded out in the middle of the street, in the terribly hot afternoon, to watch the crowds fairly giggle with delight, while the casket was loaded onto the caisson. i was very embarrassed for her when some guy yelled in the middle of the quiet, "god bless you, nancy!" this feels like a jokey, too-familiar reenactment, the whole funeral ordeal, because no one except various senators can call up the solemnity. everyone else has a get-out-of-work-free card and a hankering to get on cnn's cameras along pennsylvania avenue.
also on npr was a very interesting discussion with two different individuals, one (a white american) who worked on reagan's campaigns in the 70s, and one (a black american) who is now a professor of african-american and american studies. the campaign guy was fairly nostalgic; the professor spoke of how reagan's foreign policy supported apartheid, and how he once made a campaign stop in an extremely tiny town in georgia (?) which was obscure save for the fact that three people had been lynched there. he proceeded to make a speech about "states' rights", which the professor pointed out was code-speak at the time for rolling back integration laws and other such niceties. i think he mentioned the ketchup, too, but i was pretty struck by that story.
we caught a few minutes of the processional coverage on tv last night: i think nancy reagan looked pretty humiliated, paraded out in the middle of the street, in the terribly hot afternoon, to watch the crowds fairly giggle with delight, while the casket was loaded onto the caisson. i was very embarrassed for her when some guy yelled in the middle of the quiet, "god bless you, nancy!" this feels like a jokey, too-familiar reenactment, the whole funeral ordeal, because no one except various senators can call up the solemnity. everyone else has a get-out-of-work-free card and a hankering to get on cnn's cameras along pennsylvania avenue.
