Oh, god, I thought, is it time for another goddamn’ Presidential Election already?
This meant even more intense ravings than usual from GOP politicians and flacks — and even more intense inanity from outfits like Moral Majority and the PTL Club — on the subject of those good old traditional values, and the way we lived in those good old days when life was so much simpler, when men were men and women were dragged around by their hair, and any man could nab as many wretched little mutated fish as he could spear if he had enough drive and entrepreneurial spirit.
For instance, in this poignant portrayal of a traditional American post-nuclear family, we see that the venerable Boy Scouts Of America is still in there helping young boys learn valuable outdoor skills, and to say no to drugs.
Still, it wasn’t as if Reagan couldn’t have phoned it in, seeing as how the Democrats certainly seemed to that year — nominating the most tepid, boring, centrist excuse for Liberal they could find, the guy who nearly kept us from going to the Moon, Walter Mondale, along with “fellow” centrist Liberal and boardroom feminist, U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro. Darth Reagan, of course, took it in an “official” landslide, although a tally of all votes cast out of all eligible voters proved that the perennial dark-horse favorite “Nobody” finished first.
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For a while, it seemed like every damn’ time you turned around, either Time or Newsweek or the Washington Post or Parade Magazine or NBC was doing smarmy photo spreads and interviews with Reagan on his ranch — at least Reagan was smart enough to stick to sitting on a horse looking all manly and Presidential, unlike a certain Texas brush-clearing President we all know — and damn’ near causing normal peoples’ heads to explode from the sheer volume of aw-shucks down-home patriotism, feigned cowboy attitude, and religiosity.
As a public service, I presented through the Yipster Times/Overthrow this undercover report on the real Reagan Ranch, not the folksy simulacrum presented for Time, Newsweek, Parade and People.
pdf file, 4 pages, 323k
Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.
–Secretary of State, fmr. Gen. Alexander Haig, speaking to reporters after the assassination attempt on President Reagan
Ahh, who can forget Alexander Haig — White House Chief of Staff under Nixon, Secretary of State under Reagan, Allied Supreme Being in Europe, a guy who looks like he could play himself in a Robert Ludlum story? And, who can forget that memorable occasion — while we’re on the subject of the media and government getting weird together — when in answer to some question or another, Secretary Haig blurts out an assertion that he was “in control here” following the assassination attempt on Reagan downtown?
Leave it to my pal Gregor, who ran the Yippies’ print shop in DC — and his dryly-barbed sense of humor to give my muse a kick in the ass, with his comments that Haig was behaving like the coup leader and El Presidente of some Central American banana republic, giving his first address to the People, and his sarcastic throwing of stiff-armed fist salutes into the air and shouting, “Haig, Haig, Haig For Life!”
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One thing about this period was that it was that time when things started getting weird in Media And Government Land, ranging from frivolity like Reagan inadvertantly mouthing off around live mics, mentioning his plan to “…begin bombing in five minutes…”, to far more evil intentional mouth-offs, such as then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s declaration that a nuclear war would be “winnable”.
I remember being absolutely gob-smacking amazed at that. How the hell does he decide whether or not we’ve “won”? I’d ask myself, would it be if our side had enough people left to put on a halfway decent victory parade, as opposed to the pathetic, raggedy-assed second-generation mutant rumble shown above?
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