"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

The dunce part was correct. Amiable, not so much.

I take it you knew him personally, then?

I'll tell you who I take it from: George Will. Will knew Reagan, and said
he
was a smart guy with exceptional insights. I knew George Will -- even
before
he wore bowties -- and he's a smart guy with exceptional insights. He's
also
the most acutely critical person I've ever known. That is, the most
critical
*intelligent* person. So I've always been wary of the leftish criticisms
of
Reagan's intelligence.

The "amiable dunce" line came from Clark Clifford, JFK whiz-kid (although
he
was a very elder "kid"). The people who respect Reagn's judgment are not
part of that crowd. Some of his writings in his memoirs suggest a person
who
was distant and vague in informal contacts, but not like that at all
inside.


Ed? Ed, is that really you?

The real Wes

Whaddaya mean? I'm an equal-opportunity curmudgeon. d8-)

Reagan will always be an enigma to me, no matter how much I try to read
about him. To me, and to a lot of other people at the time, the B-movie
actor facade never let down. It was like trying to read him through a piece
of opaque glass. We knew what we were seeing wasn't real but I could never
tell what *was* real. And the only people who knew, I'm convinced, are the
people who really knew him when he wasn't in front of a camera. The only
time the rest of us ever saw him, of course, was when he *was* in front of a
camera.

--
Ed Huntress