16 January 2011 The diagnosis came as no surprise

President Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's while in office, according to son

By Stephen Lowman

Ronald Reagan was showing signs of Alzheimer’s while still in office, according to his son Ron Reagan.

In his memoir “My Father at 100,” Reagan writes:

“Today we are aware that the psychological and neurological changes associated with Alzheimer’s can be in evidence years, even decades, before identifiable symptoms arise. The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more of less answers itself.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2011/01/president_reagan_suffered_from.html

Cassi Creek
If you lived through the 1980s and had a medical education, you knew. Unless, that is, you chose not to know.

Today’s Washington Post carries the article linked above. The article itself is not remarkable other than as to source. The commentary posted by readers is interesting in nature.

A large percentage of the comments support the supposition that Reagan was already affected by his disease when initially elected. Readers cite personal conversations with White House staff, administration staff, and in a few instances, journalists cite appointments with Reagan and/or press conferences. Many, as do I, see the easily noted parallels to family members also making that long, undignified slide into mental oblivion. While there are several comments calling Reagan our worst POTUS, the level of invective is unusually low for a political column of this nature. Many of these comments bring forward the Iran-Contra arms scandal. Surprisingly few mention other signs of a government running out of control with a figurehead purportedly in charge.

On the other side of responses, those posts which attempt to deny the disease’s presence have little hard data to relate. Instead, they simply parrot the long history of lionization of Reagan that has been the pattern of the GOP since he left office. Some of the posts attack Reagan Jr. for his information. Many deny the obvious signs and symptoms pointed out by medical personnel who commented in agreement with Reagan’s son Ron. Others fall back on the oft repeated “Reagan won the Cold War.”



To me, there is no doubt that Reagan was essentially a puppet during both his terms of office. Looking back, it can be seen that he was the figurehead chosen by the GOP’s right wing to play the part of POTUS. That sort of double for the king would likely have appealed to his ego. His terms in office set the stage for the follow-on Bush II administration which reached back and pulled Reagan appointees to fill slots in the Neo-Con controlled continuation of the great deregulation and tax breaks for the rich that Reagan had come to stand for. A deteriorating actor controlled by financial interests and oil interests, kept happy by letting him think he was running a couple of banana republic wars while allowing his cabinet and advisors to run uncontrolled covert operations with no real Presidential and no Congressional oversight was what we wound up with if we were lucky. If we were unlucky we lost jobs in the downsizing of the “evil” government, we lost friends and family members as HIV/AIDS was ignored as “God’s punishment for fags.” And many of us lost life savings as the Savings and Loan scandal pointed the way to the near world financial collapse that spawned the Reagan/Bush Great Recession.

There was no need for the GOP to rename everything that didn’t move for Reagan. He’d already left his legacy. He was lucky that he lost the ability to recall the damage he did.