MEDIA'S PICTURE OF REAGAN ERA IS INCOMPLETE

The Reagan Revolution began in 1980 in Philadelphia, Miss.

Philadelphia, a speck of town north and east of Jackson, is infamous as the
place three young civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 for
registering black people to vote. Now here came Ronald Reagan, Republican
presidential aspirant, opening his campaign at a fair that for generations
had served as a forum for segregationists, and offering thinly veiled
support for their cause.

"I believe in state's rights," he said.

His death this week has to it, as you might expect, a sense of national
moment. Flags at half staff, long lines snaking into the Capitol to pay
final respects. His widow weeps, his supporters grieve and I'd have been
content to leave them their space, to watch it all in respectful silence.

Except that it's getting kind of deep around here, if you catch my drift.
Any deeper and we'll all need hip boots.

Uncritical Tributes

I refer, in case my drift goes uncaught, to the fulsome media tributes that
have attended the former president's death. Not just fulsome, but
uncritical, bereft of balance, lacking perspective. If all you knew of
Ronald Reagan is what you saw on newscasts or read in the initial coverage
from USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Miami
Herald, you'd think him a cross between Wilford Brimley and John Rambo, a
twinkle-eyed grandfather with a fondness for jelly beans who
single-handedly saved America, kicked the Commies in the butt, and maybe
even found a cure for the common cold while he was at it. You'd never know
about what he said in Mississippi.

It's hardly uncommon to speak well of the recently departed. And there is
certainly much about the former president's tenure that merits celebration.
He restored "can do" to the American lexicon, his vibrant optimism a jolt
of adrenaline after the dour Carter years and the criminality of the Nixon
gang. He pushed communism to the breaking point. He famously called the
Soviet Union what it was -- an empire of evil. He changed the political
landscape.

But my point here is that some of us also knew another Reagan, and he is
conspicuous by his absence from much of this week's coverage.

Some of us remember his cuts in federal lunch programs for poor children
and his claim that ketchup is a vegetable.

Some of us remember his revival of the old canard that Martin Luther King
was a communist.

Some of us remember Americans dying by the thousands from AIDS while their
president breathed not a word.

Some of us remember finding homeless people sleeping under freeways.

And some of us were there when the cities imploded, rent by a cheap and
insanely addictive new drug called crack. It turned our mothers into
prostitutes, our fathers into zombies, our children into orphans, our
communities into killing fields. We looked to the White House for help and
received in response a ruinous "war on drugs" and this advice from the
first lady:

"Just say no."

History Rewritten

To the degree those things are missing from their analyses, news media have
embarrassed themselves this week. They have rewritten history and slapped
on a happy face.

It's not an issue of respecting the deceased. It is, rather, an issue of
telling the whole truth, fulfilling our obligation to write history's first
draft. Imagine analyzing a recently departed Bill Clinton and leaving out
Monica Lewinsky or memorializing Richard Nixon and forgetting Watergate.
That would be what this is: dishonest. Lies of omission.

So let me say this for the record: Some of us watch these proceedings with
the sober respect you'd have for any loss of life, but also with dry eyes.
The media have sold us a fraudulent version of history. Everybody loved
Ronald Reagan, it says.

Beg pardon, but "everybody" did not.

[SIDEBAR]

Web Poll:

Do you agree with Leonard Pitt's assessment of the media coverage of Ronald
Reagan's life and death?

o Yes -- the media's coverage so far has lacked balance.

o No -- it's only appropriate at this time to focus on his positive
contributions.

Have more to say? Tell us now. (link to form)