Posted on 01/15/2011 3:13:19 PM PST by jazusamo
Ronald Reagan’s conservative son called his liberal half-brother “an embarrassment” Saturday for speculating in a new memoir that their father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease while president.
“Ron, my brother was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother,” Michael Reagan posted on Twitter.
“My brother seems to want [to] sell out his father to sell books,” he added in another tweet.
The sibling tension bubbles over just three weeks before Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, which will kick off a year of events to honor the 40th president.
In “My Father at 100,” Ron Reagan recalls early warning signs of his father losing his mental faculties. “The question,” he writes, “of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more or less answers itself.”
Michael Reagan, adopted during President Reagan’s first marriage, comes out with his own book on Tuesday. It’s a polemic called “The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan’s Principles Can Restore America’s Greatness.” Newt Gingrich, a likely 2012 Republican candidate for president, wrote the foreword.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, closely tied to former first lady Nancy Reagan, issued its own statement, more delicate but still forceful, pushing back on the claim that he suffered from Alzheimer’s while leading the free world.
“We believe Ron has written a wonderfully warm and engaging book about life with his father, Ronald Reagan,” the foundation said. “It offers a tribute that only a son could present. As for the topic of Alzheimer’s, this subject has been well documented over the years by both President Reagan’s personal physicians, physicians who treated him after the diagnosis, as well as those who worked closely with him daily. All are consistent in their view that signs of Alzheimer’s did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House.”
Indeed, Reagan was not officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s until 1994.
Ron Reagan recalled the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s during an interview that aired Friday night on ABC’s “20/20,” but he also argued that it should not undercut the legacy of his father’s presidency.
In the book, he guesses that his father probably would have resigned had he known he was ill. Excerpts from the book, which doesn’t come out until Tuesday, were first published on the U.S. News & World Report’s Washington Whispers blog.
“Pray for my brother,” Michael Reagan wrote in another post on Twitter.
In his wildest wet dreams. _rick!!!
Ron Jr.
All I have to say is Frank Sinatra had it in for Ronald Reagan. Nancy strayed.
What’s this have to do with the Ronald Reagan story?
Are they half-brothers as it says in the article? I thought that Michael was adopted and President Reagan was not genetically related to him. Ron Jr. and Michael are adopted brothers, aren’t they?
I’ve always thought it was ironic because Michael is more Reagan’s son than Ron Jr. is, in values and ideas.
That explains the father's mental condition. What's Junior's excuse?
Yeah, and unfortunately the rest of the U.S. has many families with just such ‘embarassments’.
Ron Jr. is a flat out liar as far as I’m concerned.
I watched the short segment on 20/20 last night with the wife and Ron was saying he couldn’t really point to anything specific but it was a feeling he had at the time and then mentioned something about notes by the phones. It’s clear to me he was really reaching when he wrote it and now he’s catching flak and back peddling a little.
Yes, Michael was adopted but I’ve seen them incorrectly referred to before as half brothers.
Ron’s book says more about him that it does his father.
I met Micheal last year while waiting for an elevator at the Sherman Oaks galleria. He was very friendly with me and told me about the students that he took over to the former soviet union and how seeing that evil system changed their lives for the better.
Since Michael was adopted by Ronald Reagan, Sr. during his first marriage and Ron, Jr. was born during the second marriage, technically Michael and Ron the Poof are half-brothers.
Captain Paul Eddington: Lieutenant, I don't know the situation between you and your father, but let me tell you this: Bums like your friend Owynn are with us always, like bad weather. But sailors like your old man only happen once in a while
Ensign Jere Torrey: I'm afraid I cannot accept your evaluation of Commander Owynn.
Captain Paul Eddington: Well , I'm afraid I cannot accept you as Rock Torrey's son. I think somebody got in there ahead of him.
Wow! I SAW that movie recently. First time a week, or so ago. Line was funny as all get out. Movie was VERY intense and rather sordid for John Wayne movie.
Thanks, that’s interesting. Michael has always impressed me as a genuinely good person.
Yes, I remember that scene, of course I’ve seen the movie several times. :-)
Would love to see those two settle it with a good old fashioned fistfight. In fact, I’d pay to see that.
Like others have implied - Ron needed some money to pay off a bookie - and beating on his dad’s grave was the easiest way to do so.
They are legally half-brothers, but are not biologically related. Michael was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman. Maureen Reagan was the daughter of Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan and was therefore Michael’s legal sister by law. Michael is a half-brother by adoption to Ron Jr. and Patty.
Ballerina Boy is an embarrassment to his father...maybe not to his mother, but definitely to his father.
OMG! Maureen was a DOLL!!! What a sense of humor!! RIP indeed.
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