At the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, CA, one of the exhibits is a video loop that runs various vicious comments made about Ronald Reagan by left, right and center during his presidency. If death becomes us, it surely becomes former U.S. presidents. So does time. While Reagan is broadly well remembered by political types in the present (if nothing else, as a way to bash modern Republicans), the exhibit is a reminder that in real time the attacks were rather harsh.
My 2015 visit to the Center came to mind while reading Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s new biography of James Baker, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III. A false note in this otherwise excellent read is an occasional pivot by the authors toward “pastism.” Their subject in Baker seemingly represents what Washington used to be. A better, more collegial place, supposedly. In their words, Baker “represented the city’s ideal of itself, a relentless but nonetheless patrician competitor willing to drink a Scotch with his rivals after hours.” No doubt Baker learned to navigate Washington as few did, but the view here is that the authors overrate the past. This isn’t an indictment. So many do. One of my heroes is George Will, and the neologism in quotes is what I used in a review of Will’s spectacular The Conservative Sensibility. My take was that Will’s book at times similarly elevated a past that perhaps wasn’t so great. Applied to Baker and Glasser, come on. Washington was the opposite of collegial when Baker ran it. Period. Visit the Reagan Ranch Center if in doubt. They hated Reagan.
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