|
President Reagan Changed
Me
By Tammy
Bruce
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 7,
2004
There are events in life
which remind one of what’s truly important. Last week, for
example, the subject for this column was going to be the
depraved absurdity of O.J. Simpson attempting to explain
himself to the media. Again. On this ten-year anniversary of
the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, Simpson was
making the interview rounds as the car wreck of the week.
Then President Reagan died. Once again, in a world
which seems to be swamped in the ugly and hopeless (think
Michael Moore and O.J. Simpson), Reagan emerges as a reminder
of the class, style, compassion and brilliance that makes this
nation great.
You will read many tributes to the Great Man in the
weeks to come. For my part, I present to you an abridgement of
the confessional tribute I wrote a year ago about Mr. And Mrs.
Reagan in my book, The
Death of Right and Wrong.
Ronald Reagan inspired me to become a better person.
With his death, perhaps those with whom I used to associate in
the gay and feminist establishments will have the courage to
look honestly at him and
themselves.
***
In 1994 I was in my fourth year as president of the Los
Angeles chapter of NOW. I had also served on the National NOW
Board of Directors. It was a year I remember, for several
reasons. It was the year O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown
Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, and the year my town was
hit by the devastating Northridge earthquake. It was also the
year Ronald Reagan announced to the nation that he had
Alzheimer’s. …
Ronald Reagan was hated, and still is, in the
feminist-establishment circles in which I grew up. That milieu
subsists on enemies and hatred. I took my cues from the women
around me, women I admired. They were strong and confident,
and they knew. They
knew who was out to get us. They knew who was determined to
throw us back into the Dark Ages. They knew Reagan was
evil.
I tell you this not as an excuse for my past actions
but as a further illustration of what I’ve been discussing
throughout this book – the way malignant narcissism is spread.
You see, the seed of my politics, the politics I espouse now,
were already manifested in my voting for President Reagan 10
years earlier. I liked him, and I believed he had the best
interests of Americans in mind. During my involvement with
NOW, however, what took over was my need to be accepted, the
romanticization of my “victimhood,” and the power I could
achieve by following the models of the women at the top. Those
women were happy that Reagan was sick, so I would be,
too.
The conditioning of the Left Elite works so well partly
because the people attracted to that camp are looking for
family, they are looking to belong; consequently people like
that – people like me – are easy pickings. My emptiness
compelled me to cheer when a decent man who followed his
principles was struck down by an unforgiving assailant.
Alzheimer’s had done what many feminist leaders fantasized
about doing themselves, if only they could get away with
it.
Today, I am still pro-choice, and I still support fetal
tissue research. But I now realize that those who disagree
with me also have good points. I hope they reflect on their
position as often as I do on mine, because both camps are on
the razor’s edge. I have made my commitment to women and
reproductive freedom, while my compatriots on the other side
of the fence, mostly because of their religious faith, have
made a pact with what they call “the
unborn.”
We will have to agree to disagree, but only now do I
consider those on that other side decent people – as decent as
I, but with a different focus. Ronald Reagan is one of those
decent people, but in all the feminist establishment’s mirth
about his illness, never did they consider, never would they consider,
the humanity of the man. Some may have made sympathetic public
comments, but, like Madelyn Toogood, the woman who beat her
little girl in a parking lot, they were simply looking around
to make sure no one was watching before they returned to
privately declaring that Reagan deserved to suffer. …
By now, you may not be surprised to learn that in
certain gay and feminist circles, bottles of champagne wait in
refrigerators to be opened when Reagan dies. …
I write this on the night Nancy Reagan appeared on “60
Minutes II.” Mike Wallace interviewed her about the former
president, their marriage, and their history. Watching the
show, I remembered why I liked Reagan so much – old footage of
an early interview with Mike Wallace, at the time Reagan
announced his first candidacy in 1976 (I was 14), deeply moved
me and reminded me what great leadership was to come. ...
During the interview, Mrs. Reagan disclosed that she’s
not sure her husband recognizes her anymore. Long ago he had
stopped recognizing his children, but he always knew her. Now,
it seems, he doesn’t. There was a deep sadness in the woman’s
face. It was the “long goodbye,” as she called it.
The Reagans, like so many other people, had probably
approached their Golden Years trusting, assuming, that
memories would be shared, and laughed and cried about. For
Nancy Reagan that doesn’t exist. She hasn’t said goodbye to
her husband because “he’s still here,” but the welling of
tears in her eyes revealed a wounded, sad woman. I found it
heartbreaking to see, as would any decent person of any
political persuasion.
Part of my life, however, is still reflective of what I
call my “old” life – my years of leadership in the feminist
establishment and involvement in the gay-rights movement. This
night, those two lives collided. As I cried after the
interview because of the sadness of it and my own guilt and
shame, I checked my phone messages. There was one from a gay
male friend, whom I see infrequently these days but with whom
I share some fun and important activist memories.
He had been watching the same interview, but he was
cheering. “Woo hoo! It looks like we might be opening up that
champagne sooner than later! I hope you were watching the
Dragon Lady on “60 Minutes” tonight. I suppose with
Alzheimer’s, he’s not suffering anymore, but it sure looks
like she is! There is a God after
all.”
I had never thought of my friend as an indecent person,
just as I never thought of myself as one. But he really hates
those two people and wishes them awful things. He believes
he’s in the right and they’re wrong. He also believes that the
questions that divide them are moral issues about life and
death. The difference, however, is that I think it’s safe to
say neither Nancy nor Ronald Reagan ever had a bottle of
champagne in the fridge waiting for a gay man or a feminist to
die. The Reagans, I’ll bet, don’t hoot and holler at someone
else’s pain.
Mrs. Reagan’s humanity illustrated by counterpoint the
soullessness of the Left. We, the Feminist and Gay Elites,
inflicted on society narcissists’ biggest crime of all: We
couldn’t see beyond our own interests and desires. We became
indecent in defending our principles.
…
While I don’t hold out any hope for the damaged Left
Elite I’ve exposed for you in this book, I know that we as individuals can
overcome and reject what the Left demands of us – the
abandonment of right and wrong, the banishment of decency and
integrity, the rejection of what the Reagans, both of them,
represent.
We can instead do our best to live honest lives,
replete with the discomfort of shame, the difficulties of
personal responsibility, and the joy, the genuine happiness,
that only right and good can bring. We will have the reward of
being better people.
Tammy Bruce is a Fox News Channel
Contributor and author of The Death of Right and
Wrong.
| 
