Certainly, Ronald Reagan was a great president, but he was by no means a WASP like his counterpart George H.W. Bush. However, Reagan wore things we do not see presidents wearing today, such as brown suits and as we see here, tartan. Hear, hear for one of the greatest leaders in our country's history sporting the WASPy plaid.
13 comments:
Richard,
He also wore a grey plaid suit regularly during the early years of his Presidency that I think his priciple aide Mike Deaver once told him that if he had to be shot, why couldn't it have been in that suit. When Reagan heard this it was said he laughed. Reagan was an absolute class gentleman.
Richard, since 'WASP 101' is referenced here, I'll guess that you caught this piece in yesterday's Sunday Magazine:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11FOB-medium-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine
Decided to post your full on pic - chin gives it away.
Richard, it's "Hear, hear," not "Here, here."
Anyway, RR was not the great president people think he was. To give him credit for ending the Cold War is an overreach. By shouting and putting military/economic pressure to the USSR did not necessarily cause it to crumble. For God's sake, we've been doing that (with much more intensity) to Cuba for the last 50 years without success. The credit of ending the cold war should belong to Gorbachev, who had the courage to stand up to his Soviet apparatchik and "open up." Do you realize how courageous that act is? Imagine some political head in North Korea stand up to their Communist party leaders and want to "open up" today, they'll have him deep-fried in a heart beat!! So it is Gorbachev, not RR, who is really responsible for the ending of the Cold War.
The other thing RR did of lasting damage to our country was abolishing labor tariff to protect American blue collar workforce, i.e. manufacturing. The job market today still suffers (i.e. unemployment) because of it.
Richard:
Ronald Reagan was an Irish Catholic. His sportcoat appears to be made from the Notre Dame Irish Guard tartan plaid and its brass buttons, made at that time by Ben Silver, likely bear the seal of the University.
Back in early 1980s, before universities adopt strict IP licensing rules, one could purchase the Irish Guard tartan material in the original Hammes Bookstore on the South Quad and have a tailor custom make a sport coat, trousers or kilt.
This stands to reason because President Reagan maintained a close and cordial relationship with Notre Dame, especially with its former President Theodore M. Hesbrugh, for forty years prior to being elected President in 1980 up unitl his death in 2004.
Broadly respected as the top Catholic institution of higher education in the United States if not the world and one of America's best universities, Notre Dame is definitely not a WASP institution. However, its heritage. curricula and campus are evocative of an Establishment institution.
Several Notre graduates served prominently in the two Reagan administraions while many more were appointed by to the federal bench. Late U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig began his collegiate studies at Notre Dame prior to transfering to the U.S. Military Academy. Political consultant John Sears, a Notre Dame,graduate is credited as being a key member of the team that got Reagan elected President in 1980. Richard Allen, Reagan's first National Security Advisor, earned two degrees from duLac in the late 1950's.
Take a look the University website at nd.edu and take the campus tour. Its worth the visit. Moreover, go the Irish Guard site and validate the match of the tartan.
Anonymous,
You are obviously an idiot. Our relationship with Cuba is of no comparison to the one we had with the USSR. Your assertion is a complete non sequitur. Since the USSR and the US were both competing to be the biggest superpower, RR was able to bleed the Soviet treasury by ramping up our military spending so that the Soviets would follow. If you read a history book you would see that Gorbachev's policies were aimed at saving and revamping the Communist system.
Ronald Reagan - best president in modern history.
Anonymous #3(?):
Reagan was of Irish descent (I recall much being made of his having been descended from Brian Boru, some Irish "king" (and I use that term loosely)), but I don't think he ever identified as Catholic--I believe he was a Presbyterian. He also did not actually attend Notre Dame, which is one of the great Jesuit institutions. Had he done so, he might have developed a far broader, less anti-intellectual outlook. As it was, he had a tendency to play a bit fast and loose with reality; I think he may have come to believe that he *was* a Notre Dame football star, rather than simply play one in the movies.
Jack,
If it may really be said that Reagan defeated the Soviet Union by outspending them, then it was a Pyrrhic victory, as he set the United States firmly on the same course: there is a grave danger that we may collapse, eerily enough, in much the same way and on the same terms as did the USSR. (As an aside, their misadventures in Afghanistan contributed significantly to their downfall...and our act of helping them along by aiding the mujahedin may have indirectly set the stage for ours.)
The warning of a truly great, genuine WASP president and war hero, to beware the "military industrial complex," went entirely unheeded by the cold warriors of the Reagan administration, making it all but impossible to differentiate between the interests of war profiteers and the interests of genuine national security and of our troops.
Memo to My Best New Friend Staircase Witch:
The University of Notre Dame was actually founded by the Rev. Edward Sorin of the Congregatio a Sancta Cruce (Congregation of the Holy Cross) in 1842 on a 2,500 acre tract of land north of South Bend, Indiana. Many people mistakenly assume it was established by the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits), the religous order that founded Georgetown University in Washington, DC a half century earlier.
I agree with your comment that President Reagan may have held a broader view of the world if he had in fact attended Notre Dame.
You are correct in asserting that President Reagan did not attend the University as a student. However, he did received national attention in his role as the tragic Notre Dame football hero, George Gipp, in the 1940 film Knute Rockne All-American and was awarded an honoraty Doctor of Laws by the University in May 1981 shortly after an unsuccessful assasination attempt on his life by John Hinckley.
Mr. Reagan was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic but strayed away from organized religion over the years. He and his family rarely left the White House to attend church in Washington, DC or during their often lenghtly vacation stays at their Calfornia ranch near Sanata Barbara. When they did attend church in Washington, it was at Presbyterian church near the White House.
Well, I stand corrected on both counts! While working on my doctorate at Chicago, I did a stint of teaching at Loyola (which *is* a Jesuit school). The newly-erected gymnasium, where basketball was played, had the names of several prominent Catholic schools engraved just under the eaves, including Notre Dame, Fordham, and St. Anselm. Somehow, it never occurred to me to question whether Notre Dame was anything other than a Jesuit school. I simply assumed it must be because of its reputation for intellectual rigor in so many areas of the humanities (though, of course, St. Anselm clearly was not Jesuit).
I was a teenager during the Reagan administration. I did not realize that Reagan had so much RC in his background, but I probably should have. He was quite a chameleon; probably couldn't have gotten as far as he did if he hadn't disowned his Irish Catholic roots as well as his political party and his first wife. You'll have to excuse me; as the child of Democratic exiles from a conservative establishment family, I was brought up to view that man with rather a jaundiced eye. He gave my father a permanent ulcer. But thank you sincerely for setting me straight. :)
But who is the other guy?
It seem blast from the 50s!
Is great!
Jack, the folks posting those mean-spirited comments about Reagan they're called progressives or progressive liberals and their sole goal is to comb the internet and bash all things non-liberal and/or non progressive. They especially have to tear down Reagan whenever and wherever because his extraordinarily successful administration repudiates everything they believe in. You may already be aware of these types of exercises carried out on other blogsites. It's not coordinated in many cases but a symptom of their mentality. When it is coordinated they do it as an attempt to look like there is a consensus or that such views are matter-of-factly widespread when nothing could be further from the truth. It's an old Communist tactic - to attempt to make ones political positions more consensus-like in order to create a bandwagon effect. Normal folks should be warned to beware of it and not to follow it.
As Reagan oft repeated “facts are stubborn things” progressives know this because they’re not completely insane and we know they know this because they have turned to completely disavowing reality and truth in order to combat facts. They prey upon the ignorant and the "casually political" folks in order to influence their agenda. Their attitude is "truth be damned". It doesn't matter to progressives what lies they have to tell in order to completely distort or even completely hide the truth with the goal of confusing folks and thus perhaps gaining traction in their unquenchable thirst for power. Most trolls who frequent blogs like this and spew the progressive lies are just tools, I think. They don't really know if what they're saying is true but it connects to what other high profile progressives have said and it makes them feel good so they think it must be true. They seem to have little to no regard for manners, decorum or respect. They act insidiously when they intentionally spread their lies. The so-called thought leaders among them being the most egregious.
Most sane folks know it's easily confirmable that Reagan was devoutly religious and that his reasons for not attending a public place of worship during his presidency were because of the danger to others his presence could bring should (as did happen with Hinckley) some nutcase try to assassinate him. He put others first. As soon as he was out of office he was in a pew every Sunday for as long as his health permitted. All you gotta do is read his diaries which have been available in print for years.
It's also easily provable that it was Democrats in the 80's, not Reagan, that ran up spending and perpetuated the unsustainable spending model that threatens us today. Democrats didn't even send him a budget but sent continuing resolutions to run the government in order to mask this! Reagan tried to slow spending over and over. He was successful in California at doing this when he was Governor but progressives would have you think that his goal was the exact opposite or at the least he was incompetent in this area. What a laugh! And of course the biggest laugh of all was how progressive liberals used to run around saying that Reagan was “making Draconian cuts!” when he merely wanted to slow the growth rate in spending. Remember Reagan's Gramm-Rudman Bill? Ah, struck down as "unconstitutional" by the same majority Progressive/Liberal Supreme Court that sees regulatory agencies as constitutional. Can't have the precious welfare state touched now can we?
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And of course we have the ridiculous claim that Reagan's policies didn't end the Cold War. My only response to that is to ask "Who's side are you on?" Pretty much every world leader at the time believed Reagan’s policies DID end the cold war. Even the Soviets themselves admit this is the case. It's pretty hard to argue FOR America's enemies when the enemies themselves don't agree with you. These folks ought to be ashamed of themselves for even trying to credit the Soviets with some type of moral authority for ending the cold war. But to them there is no shame in lying to achieve power. Do these folks really think that America’s crushing of the Soviet Union in an arms race didn't have anything to do with it? And Cuba - Cuba is their shining example of why we didn't crush the Soviets? Because Cuba still exists??? Any idea how stupid that sounds? Any idea how Cuba sustained itself after it's Communist takeover? - The Soviets used to send it massive influxes of cash and goods. Even today Cuba is dirt poor. Yes, such a shining example of Communism's triumph and Reagan's failure. Give us Reagan's failure any day as it's much preferable to Communism's triumph.
Also, and lastly, notice the obscure reference to the "labor tariff". Anyone remember the 80's employment situation? It was called a boom time. The economy was in a boom because of Supply-Side economics. High paying jobs were being created at, I believe, twice the rate of low paying jobs meaning it was a robust recovery boom not just a mere recovery. That didn't stop progressives from trying to distort that truth though by trying to bamboozle the America people at the time into believing that it was a lousy economy that was creating only "hamburger-flipper" jobs. The people saw through those lies and voted their conscience when they returned Reagan to the white house in 1984 by the biggest landslide in American history.
Call me when a Progressive/Liberal takes 49 states and cracks 500 electoral votes.
Great blog and thanks.
Reagan used to get some of his clothes at a shop in Beverly Hills called Carroll & Co. Many of the old Hollywood stars (Grant, Astaire, et al.) used to go there. They had a fine custom dept., and had a more Italian Ivy League look than could be had at Brooks Bros. Nowadays they've fallen in their quality and sourcing of materials, although you can work with them on a custom basis. Usually though the clientele is a bit aged and staid like the clothing. That loud Prince of Wales jacket was something Ronnie favored, and he liked to emphasize the rather large shoulders. Heavens knows why: he was a big enough man. Must be a personal thing, since the Reagans' sartorial taste left a lot to be desired.
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