Editorials / An Anti-American Poseur / Twisted and Hallucinatory
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
TWISTED AND HALLUCINATORY W hat follows is what the venerable Liberal columnist Anthony Lewis wrote the other day. For that matter, it is also what he was writing several weeks ago, several months...
...Through the years he aided the contras against all his critics worldwide, none of whom summed up the left's confused complaint more pithily than British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock, who in 1986 said: "The people of Nicaragua are still struggling to keep their infant democracy alive against the attacks of terrorists armed and funded by the government of the United States...
...For that matter, it is also what he was writing several weeks ago, several months ago, and several years ago...
...It no longer is capable of discernment or of any fresh cognition whatsoever...
...Well, at least factual evidence does exist for linking Ronald Reagan with American foreign policy vis-à-vis Central America...
...Well, it is 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1990 futile to argue with a monomaniac...
...Lewis also blamed Reagan for the excesses of junk bonds, though Reagan had no interest in the issue and the leading critics of the excesses of junk bonds have mostly been conservative Republicans, for instance, the buy-out specialist Theodore J. Forstmann...
...As a consequence of Reagan's perseverance, democracy is replacing despotism in Panama, El Salvador, and—mitubile dictu—Nicaragua...
...What makes a great country like America, itself born in revolution, finance the evil people who murder the innocents in Nicaragua...
...Reagan's military aid for El Salvador was meant to shore up democracy there, and that goal too is being slowly realized...
...Sometimes a point of view simply petrifies in time...
...From the day Reagan entered the White House to the present, Anthony Lewis has been singing pretty much the same song, quoth the sage: "History is closing in fast on Ronald Reagan...
...But does Anthony Lewis really think that the Reagan Administration's Central American policy brings disrepute to Reagan and warrants talk of "impeachment...
...Apparently Anthony Lewis and his left-wing fans still believe this, though not many Central Americans do...
...Reagan's assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams began the defenestration of Noriega when almost no one thought it possible or even prudent...
...Fifteen months ago he left office in a glow of public affection...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1990 9...
...He reviews the record of America's fortieth President and from the time capsule of his mind lugs out a dusty portrait of Warren Harding...
...His support of the contras was always viewed as instrumental toward a democratic outcome in Nicaragua...
...Reagan's policy in Central America has been vindicated by the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas and by the removal of Noriega...
...For eight years Reagan doggedly followed the recommendations of the Kissinger Commission by providing military security in the region so that democracy might take root in countries with little democratic experience...
...His adversaries denied the soundness of American policy right up to the day when the Nicaraguan people votedtyranny out...
...In support of this hallucination Lewis then linked the former President to the savings and loan scandal, which involved not the President but congressmen and senators most of whom are Democrats (of the Keating Five, four are Democrats...
...Come to think of it, it is the kind of thing that Anthony Lewis always writes whenever two words pop into his mind: Ronald and Reagan...
...Reagan's goal of a democratic Nicaragua is now being realized despite all the twisted charges he endured...
...The goal was a democratic Panama, and that goal is now being realized...
...As President, Reagan was responsible for American foreign policy...
...Oh yes, and Lewis went on at some length about Iran-contra, adding grimly that Reagan's "amiable style, his hold on the public's affection, made Congress shy away from the impeachment process or any serious political challenge...
...Confronted by history with a new script and a new cast of characters, the bewildered Anthony Lewis can only summon up familiar images from a well-known past...
...Still, despite these accomplishments Anthony Lewis writes wistfully of doing a Watergate on Ronald Reagan —which is not all: he concludes his most recent column on Reagan by comparing his presidency with the infamous presidency of Warren Harding...
...Today he is increasingly identified with greed, corruption and conspiracy...
...As late as February 20, on the ABC evening news, Peter Jennings would cite a dubious poll and prophesy: "For the Bush Administration and the Reagan Administration . . . the poll hints at a simple truth: after years of trying to get rid of the Sandinistas, there is not much to show for their efforts...
Vol. 23 • June 1990 • No. 6
