Book by Will Bunch - Tear Down This Myth

Summary

Conservative ideologues have airbrushed Reagan's legacy for their own political ends. Here's the truth behind the convenient fantasy.

In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into an icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit.

With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following:

Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed.

Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions � his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie.

George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of Reaganomics during the1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt.

With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.

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Excerpt: Tear Down This Myth, by Will Bunch

The present was January 30, 2008, when four powerful men walked onto a freshly built debate stage in Simi Valley, California, seeking to control the past � most ironically, the American past that was at its peak in that very "Morning in America" year of 1984. They knew that whoever controlled the past on this night would have a real shot at controlling the future of the United States of America. Lest there be any doubt of that, the large block letters UNITED STATES OF AMERICA hovered for ninety minutes over the heads of these men � the last four Republican candidates for president in 2008 � who had made the pilgrimage to the cavernous main hall inside Simi Valley's Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. This was the final debate of a primary campaign that had basically started in this very room nine months ago and now was about to essentially end here � in what was becoming a kind of National Cathedral to Ronald Reagan, even complete with his burial vault. The block letters were stenciled across the hulking blue and white frame of a modified Boeing 707 jetliner that officially carried the bland bureaucratic title of SAM (Special Air Mission) 27000, but bore the title of Air Force One from 1972 through 1990 � a remarkable era of highs and lows for the American presidency.

To many baby boomers, this jet's place in history was burnished on August 9, 1974, when it carried the disgraced Richard Nixon home to California on his first day as a private citizen. But that was before SAM 27000 was passed down to Ronald Reagan and now to the Ronald Reagan legacy factory, which flew it back here to the Golden State, power-washed it clean, and reassembled it as the visual centerpiece of Reagan's presidential library. It was now part American aviation icon and part political reliquary, suspended all deus ex machine from the roof in its new final resting place, with Reagan's notepads and even his beloved jelly beans as its holy artifacts.

And for much of this winter night ... continue reading >

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Editorial Reviews

Review: Tear Down This Myth (Publishers Weekly)

In an attempt to challenge the legend that has sprung up around Ronald Reagan's presidency over the past decade, Bunch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, argues that the Reagan "myth" is dangerous because, unlike other American presidents held up as heroes, like Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson, reverence for Reagan did not emerge organically. Rather, the GOP hatched the Reagan myth, feeding it to the news media "for purposes that were essentially partisan in nature... pulling off a maneuver that was unprecedented in American history." The result has been a simplified reconstruction of Reagan, from far from universally popular president to the man who ended the Cold War and spurred unprecedented economic growth. Bunch contends Reagan was responsible for neither, at least not singlehandedly. Instead, he claims that the 40th president's real achievement lay in his ability to compromise, an element of his leadership conservatives have ignored since he left office. Neither Bunch's arguments nor his prose are powerful enough to do more than slightly tarnish Reagan's halo, but his book capably puts into perspective an imperfect but fascinating administration.

Review: Tear Down This Myth (Kirkus Reviews)

Philadelphia Daily News senior writer Bunch (Jukebox America: Down Back Streets and Blue Highways in Search of the Country's Greatest Jukebox, 1994) wants no part of the historical revisionism that would place Ronald Reagan on Mt. Rushmore. Although Reagan won two landslide White House victories, critics regarded him as either a dangerous ideologue likely to touch off nuclear war or as a detached, lazy executive who presided over an unprecedented era of greed. His administration, notable for its indifference to minorities and hostility toward the environment, also included the Iran-Contra scandal, which might well have resulted in his impeachment, but for Reagan's personal popularity and the country's weariness with the four failed presidencies that preceded his. Reagan was also fortunate, Bunch claims, in his afflictions: a failed assassination attempt that unnaturally extended his honeymoon period in office and a ten-year post-presidential descent into Alzheimer's that nearly immunized him from criticism. The Gipper has receded into history as an uncompromising man of principle, the embodiment of old-fashioned family values who cut taxes, slashed the size of government, supercharged the economy and won the Cold War. Bunch argues that almost none of this is true. He attributes the historical makeover to the concerted efforts of a right-wing myth machine that has sought formally (The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, the Reagan Library) and informally to rewrite the past by eliminating negative references to the Reagan era and awarding Reagan more credit than he deserves for the economic recovery and Cold War victory. His presidency was a triumph of public relations in whichphoto-ops, soaring language and the president's personal affability papered over the gap between the Gipper's rhetoric and actual achievement. It has distorted our politics, Bunch insists, by inspiring nearly every succeeding Republican presidential candidate and, surprisingly, even some Democrats to ... continue reading >

Member Reviews

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annaf	Posted on Mar 24, 2009 11:53 AM
From Bunch's Blog to here I read Bunch's blog so I figured I should give his book a chance. I am glad to see his Wit carries over; Reagan can be a dry subject (despite the man's acting background), but Bunch makes sure it's digestible.
sfriedman	Posted on Mar 3, 2009 12:48 PM
Reaganomics If there are Reagan-lovers out there, do not read Bunch's book. It adeptly breaks down the Reagan Era, or a period of years that Bunch believes were made up of PR stunts, photo-ops, and a false Cold War "victory."
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Biography

Will Bunch, the author of author of Tear Down This Myth, is a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the author of the blog Attytood.

Author Interview

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Interview with Will Bunch (BuzzFlash)

Will, when you fly into D.C., do you call it National Airport or Reagan Airport?

Hah! Maybe that's why I always drive to Washington (it's only 2 � hours) or take the Biden-approved Amtrak route. The last time I flew to that airport, Reagan was still president! Semi-seriously, I'm not surprised that Grover Norquist and the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project chose that airport as their first re-naming target -- it's used by many Democratic members of Congress and the East Coast liberal media elites, right?

Actually, this is a question that does relate directly to your book. The Republican Reagan mythologizers were hell-bent on renaming National to "honor" the "Reagan revolution," and they succeeded. How do efforts like this fit into the GOP effort to make Reagan into a mythic figure?

I think the campaign by the Reagan legacy project to rename some public facility -- whether it's a road or a school or a Post Office -- for the Gipper in every one of America's more than 3,000 counties (already successful in a couple of hundred) is also a real tribute to the power of style over substance. The real historical legacy of Reagan is complex and often unflattering -- stirring rhetoric even as the national debt soared out of control and as his government was secretly trading arms for hostages in Iran. But when an American -- especially the millions of voters now too young to remember Reagan's actual presidency -- attend the Ronald Reagan Middle School or drive to work down Ronald Reagan Boulevard, the broader not-so-subliminal message is that the 40th president was simply a great man - - ... continue reading >