Raising Ronnie

by digby

Oh God, please no:

This Friday marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. You’re going to be hearing a lot about the Gipper this week, and you’re going to be hearing a lot about him for the next 12 months. Already, a Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission — signed into law by President Obama last June, at a ceremony attended by Nancy Reagan — is busy planning a slew of Feb. 6, 2011, events that may take the nation one step closer toward Reagan’s political canonization. Meanwhile, day in and day out, the legacy of the 40th president still looms large over the national conversation, some 21 years after he left the Oval Office and nearly six years after his death — thanks in part to a deliberate campaign of distortion by modern conservatives, a Reagan myth has been used to justify disastrous spending policies at home and disastrous militarism abroad .

That was written by Will Bunch whose book “Tear Down This Myth: The Right Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy,” lays out all the reasons why this myth is so pernicious. But Bunch also makes a recommendation that I think is so important. I was critical of Obama during the campaign for appropriating Reagan’s legacy, but it was because he unfortunately appropriated the anti-government piece of it. But that doesn’t mean that liberals shouldn’t appropriate those aspects of the legacy that actually benefit them (and hopefully drive conservatives mad) just as Republicans do by cherry picking JFK and Roosevelt’s legacy for themselves. To that end, Bunch has compiled a useful list in that post, which I would urge Democrats to peruse.

The next year is going to be a non-stop Reagan fest and it would be really great if the Democrats were prepared with a plan to deal with it.

.