Caveat lector

LEGENDS! Krugman suggests that we stop telling tales. But Russert is still peddling legends:

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2004

LEGENDS: In this morning’s New York Times, Paul Krugman offers his take on the “legend” of Reaganomics. But then, throughout the coverage of President Reagan’s death, grinning TV entertainers have put themselves into the legend business. Tim Russert continued the process last night when he did Larry King Live. In particular, Russert continued to push a growing legend about Reagan’s integrity regarding Iran-contra. Because Russert is such a major press figure, we think it’s worth taking a second look at the way he is spreading this tale.

Early on, Larry asked an open-ended question about President Reagan’s appeal. “What, Tim, did he represent, do you think, that touched so many people? Even so many people who disagreed with him politically?” Surely someone could answer that question without deceiving the people to whom King referred. But Russert has been in the legend business all week. Try to believe that he said this:

RUSSERT: I think that’s a very important point, Larry. You know, in my lifetime, there only have been two presidents who I remember coming forward and acknowledging a mistake, a big mistake: John Kennedy on the Bay Of pigs and Ronald Reagan on Iran-Contra. And both of them, I think, enhanced their credibility and popularity by doing just that.

Russert, eager to peddle his own feel-good book, was peddling a ludicrous legend. On last Sunday’s Meet the Press, the grinning showman praised the late president for his March 4, 1987 speech to the nation–the only time Reagan publicly acknowledged that he had actually traded arms for hostages in the Iran-contra boondoggle. But in President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Lou Cannon explains, in painful detail, the way Reagan’s aides had to struggle to get him to make this one grudging statement. Meanwhile, Cannon gives unblinking accounts of Reagan’s overall conduct in this matter. For example, here’s a partial description of the inspiring president’s November 19, 1986 press conference:

CANNON (page 613): [I]f Reagan was more effective in this performance than he had been six days earlier [in a national address], the content of his news conference answers was even more damaging than his television speech had been. Almost every answer that dealt with a question about the Iran initiative was at variance with the facts. The most serious misstatement, and one Reagan certainly knew was false, was his response to a question from Charles Bierbauer of CNN, who asked if the United States had been involved with Israel in supplying weapons to Iran. “We, as I say, have had nothing to do with other countries or with their shipments of arms or doing what they’re doing,” Reagan said. When Andrea Mitchell pointed out that [Reagan chief of staff] Don Regan had told reporters that the U.S. government had condoned an Israeli weapons shipment just before the release of American hostage Benjamin Weir, Reagan went deeper into the hole, saying, “Well, no, I’ve never heard Mr. Regan say that, and I’ll have to ask him about that.” But he didn’t have to ask. Within twenty minutes of the news conference the White House chief of staff directed the press office to issue a correction acknowledging that “there was a third country involved in our secret project with Iran.”

CANNON (page 657): The March 4 speech was a turning point for Reagan. He still faced many difficult days during the Iran-contra hearings and he would subsequently “revert,” to use Abshire’s word, to his original contention that he had never traded arms for hostages. Reagan would never be able to accept completely his complicity in the affair–in his memoirs he would say that “it was as if Americans were forgiving me for something which I had never done.” Parvin, whose speech had brought Reagan as close as he would ever come to an outright admission of trading arms for hostages, concluded that what Reagan had really wanted to say was “I didn’t do it, and I’ll never do it again.”

At the end of this morning’s column, Krugman makes a sensible suggestion. “So here’s my plea,” the columnist says. “[L]et’s honor Mr. Reagan for his real achievements, not dishonor him–and mislead the nation–with false claims about his economic record.” But entertainers like Russert have books to sell, and you have to set a pleasing tone if you’re going to close the deal. If you read last evening’s transcript, note the way the grinning scribe peddles his book from beginning to end. And note the way he peddles a legend–misleading the nation, to use Krugman’s term. And yes: This is the actual face of the gang we still describe as a “press corps.” They’ve been in the legend business for years. Russert’s foolish spinning of Iran-contra helps us see how his tribe works.

MISLEADING THE NATION: As noted, Russert had more to say about Iran-contra. “What will history say of Ronald Reagan?” King asked at one point. After discussing the Cold War and economic growth, Tim began dreaming again:

RUSSERT: Also I think Iran-contra will be talked about, which was a very, very serious issue. As you remember, Larry, taking arms, and sending them to Iran, and then the money that was gotten from those sales, diverted to the contras in Nicaragua. People probably forget now, but some were even suggesting a potential impeachment. But it was late enough in the president’s second term that that never actually took form.

And the president, to his credit, stepped forward and said, I didn’t know it was happening. And to this day I don’t want to believe it was. But the facts speak otherwise, and it should not have been done. Which I think is very, very essential.

REAGAN (3/4/87): A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

HE EVEN SAID THIS: Yes, Russert even said this last night, swept away by the need to build legends:

RUSSERT: One other political point: The Republicans achieved control of the United States Congress for the first time in 70 years, of both houses, under Ronald Reagan.

PERFECT GENTLEMEN: You’ll recall John Kerry’s surly behavior when he “paid his respects” to Reagan (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/9/04). Let’s face it–character counts in a possible president. Luckily, the New York Times’ fearless scribe, David Halbfinger, was willing to report what he did:

HALBFINGER (5/9/04): Mr. Kerry, who came to Los Angeles to see his daughter Alexandra, 30, graduate from the American Film Institute on Wednesday, briefly paid his respects to Mr. Reagan at the presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., Tuesday afternoon. Momentarily cutting through a cordon of mourners, he saluted Mr. Reagan’s coffin with his hand over his heart, bowed his head, crossed himself, saluted again and left–all in the space of a minute.

This morning, we finally see the sequel. Yesterday, President Bush and other Big Pols also paid their respects to Reagan. They certainly could have jumped the line too. But in Bush’s case, we saw real character! Here’s how Sheryl Gay Stolberg describes his visit in this morning’s Times:

STOLBERG (5/11/04): President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, made a quick visit on Thursday evening, surprising some of the everyday people who were already in the Rotunda. They approached the coffin silently and bowed their heads. Then Mr. Bush put his hands on the flag, smoothing it, before he led Mrs. Bush away.

STOLBERG: Earlier in the day, Senator Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, escorted the new interim president of Iraq, Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, who bowed his head and put his right hand across his chest. Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, lingered by the coffin and placed a hand on it.

SHANKER: His solemn duties for the day came first, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev bowed his head before the coffin of Ronald Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday and stopped at Blair House to pay a condolence call on Nancy Reagan.

Only then did he pause and let the memories come flooding back.