# Posted 6:26 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

OBITUARY WARS: An in-depth critique of the NYT and WaPo obituaries for President Reagan could fill a book, so I'll limit myself to a few observations. First and foremost, the WaPo obituary reflected the worst sort of mindless adoration that tends to emerge in the aftermath of an important man's death. While I am all for praising the dead at funerals, journalists have an obligation to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth even while the body is still warm.

What I found most disturbing about Lou Cannon's obituary in the WaPo was that its tone and substance were completely at odds with Cannon's own magnificent biography of the President. Cannon's biography demonstrates how desperately out of touch Reagan was with the reality around him and how little he cared to learn more about it. Whether death squads in El Salvador or bureaucratic warfare in his own Cabinet, Reagan allowed himself to remain blissfully unaware. What makes the biography so damning is that it was written by Cannon, who even in the 1980s was known as the mainstream journalist most sympathetic to Reagan.

Actually, the real problem here is that the Post decided to let Cannon write Reagan's obituary. While one can forgive Cannon for publishing an uncritical eulogy of a man with whom he had a close personal relationship, the Post should have known better than to let the President's friends write his obituary. Of course, this is not how conservatives are looking at it. Already, the Weekly Standard is praising the WaPo while blasting the NYT for its spare and mocking coverage.

While I agree that the Times' could've done far more than publish a single, long obituary, the fact remains that its account of Reagan's presidency is far more balanced than the one written by Cannon. The main problem with the Times obituary is that its smirking arrogance detracts from the credibility of an otherwise fair account. As Hawken points out, the Times' obit comes dangerously close to suggesting that Reagan's success reflected little more than his good looks. In short, the Times obit reflects the same elitist condescension that marred the paper's coverage of Reagan during his two terms in the White House. The message then was the same as the message now: conservative presidents can only succeed because of the gross ignorance of the American voter.

Perhaps as penance for the failures of their respective obituaries, both the NYT and WaPo have published masthead editorials that contradict the obituaries' basic message. The WaPo editorial is a thoughtful evaluation of how Reagan's uncomprising ideological convictions were responsible for both his triumphs and his failures. The NYT editorial balances the expected liberal criticisms of economic and foreign policies with a good bit of ahistorical fluff. Unbelievably, the NYT writes that

Many people who disagreed with his ideology still liked him for his personality, and that was a source of frustration for his political opponents who knew how much the ideology mattered. Looking back now, we can trace some of the flaws of the current Washington mindset — the tax-cut-driven deficits, the slogan-driven foreign policy — to Mr. Reagan's example. But after more than a decade of political mean-spiritedness, we have to admit that collegiality and good manners are beginning to look pretty attractive.

As a doctoral candidate whose research involves reading old NYT articles from the 1980s, I can assure you that the Times was far more likely to criticize Reagand for his dishonesty and diviseness than praise him for his collegiality and good manners. Even if the President was always a gentleman in person, he didn't shy away from playing a very nasty sort of hardball politics when he thought that America's best interests were on the line.

The Times' revisionist history is disturbing because it dovetails with the revisionism that conservatives have embraced for quite some time now. For example, the Weekly Standard has just reposted a Fred Barnes column from 2001 that begins:

RONALD REAGAN had an unusual way of dealing with reporters and columnists: He transcended them. He didn't complain about what they wrote or said on TV. At least I never heard that he had. He didn't flatter them, as some politicians do, by pretending to admire their work, in hope they'd produce puff pieces about him. So far as I know, he didn't have friends in the Washington press corps and didn't want any.

As a matter of fact, Reagan complained very vocally and publicly about liberal bias in the media. For example, in the very speech that I described yesterday as Reagan's greatest, the President insisted that

For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in El Salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave freedom-fighters battling oppressive government forces in behalf of the silent, suffering people of that tortured country.

And then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom-fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are -- Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves, and their backers, not democracy for the people.

In short, Reagan believed that the liberal media were useful idiots that did Moscow the favor of working without compensation. Collegiality and good manners? Not by a long shot.

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