I Blame Ronald Reagan for Everything or the History of America According to Gary

Ronald Reagn would have turned 100 on Sunday. You know what this means; the pro-Reagan people are going to fling that man's memory in our face for the next year as many times as Nancy flung herself across Ronnie's coffin.

The real reason I have always held Ronald Reagan in such low esteem was the way he undermined the election of Gerald Ford in 1976. (I don't generally hold grudges this long unless it involves the loss of a Hershey bar.)

Gerald Ford was in a tight race in '76. Reagan had no real chance of winning but he knew Ford was vulnerable and he mounted a primary challenge with his eye on 1980. Ford ended up narrowly losing to Carter. I will never forgive Reagan of depriving the nation of four more years of having Betty Ford as First Lady. I don't care if she was drunk. She had a good reason to be (chronic back pain) and she was fun.

No matter how decent an ex-president Carter has become he was not very successful during his four years in office unless you count that Mid-East peace thing. Let's face it: Carter was way too Christian to ever lead this country. He refused to go to war when Iran held Americans hostage. Reagan rode that apparent weakness to victory. When Carter did finally arrange the hostages released it played right into Reagan's  “Morning in America”  rhetoric.

Reagan was the first Republican that I remember that had the ability to get working class people to vote against their own interests. Union workers ignored their leaders and voted for him in droves. He showed his loyalty by breaking the air traffic controllers union his first few weeks in office.

I never bought into his folksy charm or believed for one moment he didn't dye his hair. He loved to wave the flag and invoke God at every opportunity but I doubt the thought of attending church unless the cameras were rolling ever crossed his mind.

The other little legacy he left us was the idea of school reform. Once in office, he ordered a report on  the nation's schools, assuming that the study would show they were in good shape and he could abolish the Department of Education. OOPS! Turned out the schools were failing. The federal government has been trying to fix them ever since with one failed program after another including No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. No matter what program the feds come up with it always has the same result: a refusal to fund federal mandates and more hoops for educators to jump through.

Recently his son, the cute former ballet dancer, Ron created quite a stir when he said there were signs of his father's confusion when he was in office. Ya think? Later he said he wasn't referring to his father's Alzheimers. Please! Reagan was loopy from the start, a popular figure that could be propped up to put a good face on repugnant policies.

I know the Fox News crowd would love to see his granite-like features on Mt. Rushmore. Thank goodness he and the Bushes never really got along (fueled in part by that battle of the plaids incident between Babs and Nancy). In my sinister little heart I like to believe that the fact that the Reagans weren't all that nice to the Bushes during the eight years Nancy, er Ronnie was in office is the reason they haven't started the blasting up in South Dakota yet.

 I only live by a few bedrock principles and one of them is this: never underestimate the influence of Mama Bush.