‘Reagan: An American Journey’ Review: The Arc of an All-American

Wall Street Journal ^ | Septenber 27, 2018 | Richard Brookhiser

[reaganaut1]

The reputations of politicians go through distinct phases. First comes the real time of campaigning, public pronouncement and journalism, a mixture of confetti, gravitas and sleet-storm. Retirement brings the memoirs of subject, colleagues, relatives and eye-witnesses. Only after death does biography sculpt its first substantial image, which can last a long time. Later historians will argue and chisel, but they will work on that initial posthumous statue.

“Reagan: An American Journey” by Bob Spitz aims to create such an image. The cover says it all: a shining black-and-white shot of a handsome man, his face simultaneously genial and serious, his body energetic even in repose. He is leaning on a wooden fence, but he is in the Pantheon.

Mr. Spitz’s previous subjects include Julia Child and the Beatles—odd warm-ups for a presidential historian. But Mr. Spitz takes Reagan’s immersion in popular culture seriously, as an element of his democratic appeal.

Reagan’s journey proceeds in five movements: Midwestern youth; Hollywood; an introduction to politics (as union head, corporate spokesman and governor of California); the presidency; the recessional.

Reagan, born in 1911, grew up in a series of Illinois towns (with one stay in Chicago), which he remembered as a composite sunny backdrop, highlighted by scenes of youthful glory as a lifeguard and an athlete and actor at Eureka College. But there were storms too, which he occasionally admitted. His father, Jack Reagan, was a drunk who finally failed as a shoe salesman (hence the family’s many moves). His mother, Nelle, was a devout member of the Christian Church whose warmth was vital to him early on, but as he grew up she turned it away from him and toward good works.

[Smittie]

Thank God for Ronald Reagan, I wouldn’t want to think what this country or world would be like if he wasn’t around when he was. All of the forces of what we’re fighting against today would probably controlling things. I only wish he would’ve picked someone besides Bush for VP.

[YogicCowboy]

Too bad he forever damaged his legacy by:

Accepting the Neocon UniParty Trojan Horse, George Bush.

Enacting the Illegal Alien Amnesty with the treacherous Democrats.

He may not have had much choice on the former, but he certainly did on the latter.

Goodbye, My Former Gubernatorial State of California, Goodbye.