The Sons of the Father

Watching Chris Matthews on Hardball the other night and he has neo-con "war-nik" Frank Gaffney on, to debate Dick Cheney's recent comments on Obama with President Reagan's son Ron Reagan.

It's pretty much to be expected in these so-called dialogues between representatives of the "Left" and the "Right" that an argument will shortly ensue. But this one was a bit beyond the pale even for politijunkies like me. At the end of a pretty heated exchange, Gaffney tells Ron Reagan that his father would be ashamed of him. Now you know I'm pro peace & dialogue and such...but I would have smacked the metaphorical taste out of the old coot's mouth right then. Check it out:



How crass must you be to drag a man's dead daddy into the fray. All politics aside I'm guessing President Reagan loved his son as much as any father, and knowing Reagan's own neo-conservo-iconoclastic reputation (yes I made that word up), was probably proud of him for having the guts to "go his own way".

You can peep the full exchange here.

D.N.A

Comments

[Lucia Brawley]

How low does one have to sink to tell a man that his dead father would be ashamed of him for his First Amendment rights? Ron Reagan handled it well -- I liked when he said, "I'll see you later, Frank." It was very Godfather. Love your blog, Derrick.

[Donna aka Tuty]

Thanks for sharing this info. I don't watch much tv or news and wouldn't have known about it.

[jeb]

DNA - Agree this is outrageous... Gaffney deserves to have the pretentious stuffing slapped out of him.
I do think you give papa Regan too much credit. Despite his elevation to sainthood by the US media, he was a tool who was cowed by his right wing intellectuals into an illegal covert war and started the financial deregulation that's responsible for the bank meltdown, the investment scammers like Madoff, etc. Regan never had any particular attachment to upholding the Bill of Rights, nor was a fan of gay rights. Who knows how he treated is gay son growing up?

[admin]

Jeb, you make a good point on Reagan being a tool of "higher powers" (in this instance, not the kind the Evangelicals might suggest). I definitely think the public sphere in the US has deified him in a way I don't believe is deserved. But I look at a genuine "tool" like Cheney and the way he supports his daughters rights as a gay American, and I'm willing to give Pres. Reagan the benefit of the doubt in that he'd support his own son's right to express himself freely (even if he may not have defended ours to do the same). D.N.A