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The Great Head of State

The Great Head of State

“He has a chance to make somebody move over on Mount Rushmore. He’s working for his place on the coins and the postage stamps.”

—Henry Graff, Columbia University, on Reagan’s second term

The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project (an affiliate of Americans for Tax Reform) is engaged in a high-profile effort to honor the legacy of Ronald Reagan through the designating and renaming of federal and local landmarks. Former AZ Republican Representative Matt Salmon suggested adding Reagan’s likeness to Mt. Rushmore. Although that project never got off the ground, the RRLC is currently attempting to find a place for the 40th president’s visage on the $10 bill. Other proposed tributes include the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site (H.R. 400) in Dixon IL , the Ronald Reagan Commemorative Coin Act of 2001 (S. 1143), and the ambitious Ronald Reagan Memorial Act of 2001 (H.R. 452) to create a memorial on the mall in Washington DC between the Capital and the Lincoln Memorial. (The National Park Service, citing the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, says that it is too early to place a monument to Reagan on the Mall since federal rules prohibit memorials to someone who hasn’t been dead for at least five years. (Ironically, it was Reagan who signed the waiting period into law.) The RRLC’s successful efforts include:


A   F I T T I N G  T R I B U T E

A 6-foot portrait of Ronald Reagan made from 14,000 jelly beans by Peter Rocha, on behalf of the Herman Goelitz Candy Co. of Illinois. The portrait hangs in the Gipper’s boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois.

Though well-intentioned, such efforts do little to honor the impact of the man and his ideas on our nation. To help sustain the Ronald Reagan legacy, I would like to propose a daring new tribute.

Like the rest of the nation, I was saddened when I found out that President Reagan had Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is the most common cause of dementia in older people and affects an estimated 4 million people in the United States. Currently, there is no treatment to stop AD and as the “baby boom” generation moves inexorably into its senior years, AD is likely to become even more widespread. In order to call attention to this disease and the serious affects that it can have on one’s health and stability, I propose that we rename AD to “Ronald Reagan’s disease“.

Say “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” in a room full of people, and very few of them will immediately think “baseball” (though many of them may start singing “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious“); but say “Lou Gehrig“, and most people will think “Lou Gehrig’s disease” and “baseball“. Through the unfortunate circumstances of his death, Lou Gehrig’s career as a great baseball player will always be remembered.

Similarly, for those concerned that the true legacy of the Reagan presidency may be forgotten, the use of the term “Ronald Reagan’s disease” to identify a deteriorative brain disorder marked by memory loss, impaired judgment, and profound confusion will stand as a fitting tribute to the 40th president. In the process, it is hoped that the history of the Reagan years will be reexamined so that his many critics who accused him of being “doting“, “befuddled“, “daft“, “incoherent“, “addled“, “scatter-brained“, “unhinged“, “touched in the head“, “devoid of reason“, “in a fog“, “adrift at sea“, “perplexed“, “puzzled“, “mentally floundering“, “embarrassingly out of touch“,”;twitterpated“, “not firing with all thrusters“, “not dipping both oars“, or “non compos mentis” will now hang their collective heads in shame when they realize that the former movie star was simply a man suffering from a clinically diagnosed degenerative condition.

If you support this idea, please leave a comment below. I also urge you to write your legislator today. Click here for a suggested letter, or write your own.

19 Comments »

  1. The promotion of knowledge of a disease is often benefited by its naming for a celebrity who has suffered from that disease. Lending President Reagan’s name to this tragic illness will make great strides towards the public’s understanding of Alzheimer’s symptoms and thus, improve public awareness of the consequences of this President and of this disease.

    Comment by Sharon@Kosher.Com — July 26, 2001 @ 12:34 pm

  2. This is an interesting proposal, but there are several assumptions which should be examined, to wit: 1) We know that Ronald Reagan had an engaging smile which managed to distract people from the fact that little of substance ever came out of his mouth; 2) He had a Teflon skin which kept anything questionable from sticking to him; and, 3) He dyed his hair dark brown to cover the fact that there was little else under it, but are we certain that he possessed the organ necessary to be afflicted with AD? The next assumption is that there actually was a Ronald Reagan; after all, no one ever saw him and Henry Kissinger together in the same room at the same time!! Finally, based on the “Lost Season” of Dallas when it turned out that one entire year of the show was only a dream and everything that was supposed to happen really didn’t — are we absolutely certain, to a positive degree, that the years from January 20, 1981, through January 20, 1989, ever actually occurred? There are many who will argue quite forcefully that this eight year stretch was only a bad dream at best and a dreadful nightmare at most. Think about it. Those cautions aside, I support the proposal.

    Comment by Joseph McCord — July 27, 2001 @ 9:54 pm

  3. Alzheimer’s disease (AD)???
    I think ADD is more appropriate…

    Comment by al delledera — July 28, 2001 @ 10:07 am

  4. I sincerely hope that this petition will finally convince the Bush administration that President Reagan’s brain should be cryogenically preserved when the time comes. Once the disease is reversed, political scientists will be able to tap the deep wealth of knowledge regarding matters of great importance to our nation’s security that lie within.

    Comment by John Potter — July 29, 2001 @ 8:54 am

  5. I think this is a great idea but what about “George Dubya Disease”?
    I wouldn’t want to wait so long to find out what is behind HIS incompetence.
    Could you look into this for us?
    Go Ronnie Go!

    Comment by Shannon McCord — July 30, 2001 @ 8:09 am

  6. I support anything that brings more attention to this disease that happens to run in my family (well, one uncle) and knowing my luck, I’ll be the next one to get it. It may be a bit tacky to focus on Ronnie, but hey, does he care?

    Comment by Lyle Darnell — July 30, 2001 @ 11:17 am

  7. Reagan’s legacy: creating poor people, a national debt so huge that they blew a hard-drive attempting to calculate it (admittedly, hard drives were smaller then). Star Wars. Nancy got a whole bunch of new dresses. I lost 40 pounds because I threw up every time I saw him on TV. His comment on trees: When you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Shouldn’t we have a Reagan Saw Mill? Taxing unemployment checks was a great idea, making being unemployed less attractive. Forgot that one? 1982

    The Berlin Wall crumbled, the U.S.S.R. fell apart, all due to him. The Nobel Peace Prize committee didn’t acknowledge this feat. Can we ever forget our hostages being held in Iran until after his election? I’m sure they didn’t mind. He was an idiot. How long did it take to diagnose him with AD when he’d had the symptoms for twenty years?

    When I think of Ronnie, I think of all of the beautiful, talented, gloriously alive people who died of AIDS. Maybe they would have died anyway. Mr. Reagan ignored them. In their way they contributed more to this country than he did. I feel no sorrow or pity for him.

    Comment by Terry Brenan — July 31, 2001 @ 12:09 pm

  8. It’s the right thing for America.

    Comment by Russell Alexander — August 15, 2001 @ 3:21 pm

  9. FABULOUS! SPLENDID! Clearly the find of the new century! Oh, if only I existed…!

    Comment by David Manning — July 25, 2001 @ 1:47 am

  10. What better legacy can we give to this great intellectual president?

    Comment by Jean Woodman — July 30, 2001 @ 7:09 am

  11. This is the best way to honor Reagan!

    Comment by Barbara Cornett — August 1, 2001 @ 12:20 pm

  12. Makes more sense than Ronald Reagan airport!

    Comment by Amanda Peck — October 12, 2001 @ 1:22 pm

  13. Reasonable and honorable.

    Comment by Alan Young — October 12, 2001 @ 10:22 pm

  14. I only hope they remember i as well…

    Comment by George W — June 13, 2002 @ 5:35 pm

  15. it is right to refer to AD as Reagans Disease – i was suspicious by 1981 and convinced of his dementia by 1982. the article i read in “the natioanl review” during that time only made any sort of sense if one assumes that the leaders of the rethuglican party and conservative movements were fully aware of his dementia.

    Comment by daniel — August 11, 2006 @ 6:19 pm

  16. Interesting that you should mention Lou Gherig’s Disease right next to the jelly bean portrait. The artist who created the portrait was my cousin, Peter Rocha, of San Francisco. Peter died from ALS right around the same time that Reagan died. The portrait was displayed at Reagan’s funeral.

    Comment by Jimmy Diamonde — December 30, 2006 @ 8:36 am

  17. Wow! I am sorry to hear about the loss of your cousin. The satirical nature of this site aside, I respect his work and would like to see more.

    Comment by Admin — December 30, 2006 @ 11:46 am

  18. Reagan was born in Los Angeles , California , and grew up on the road in Los Angeles , and then Sacramento , while his father was governor of California from 1967 to 1975. He has a sister, Patti Davis , five and a half years his senior, and a brother, Michael Reagan , who was adopted as an infant by Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman . He also had two half-sisters who were born to Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman who are deceased: Maureen Reagan who died in 2001 and Christine Reagan, who was born prematurely June 26, 1947 and died later the same day. Ron Reagan is the son of Nancy Davis Reagan.

    Comment by Lindsey H. Strong — January 27, 2013 @ 4:36 am

  19. Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, had two children, daughter Maureen and an adopted son, Michael. Patti and Ron followed with second wife Nancy Davis Reagan. Born in 1941, at the height of Reagan’s popularity as an actor, Maureen was part of the picture-perfect family that, in the 1930s and ’40s, Warner Brothers promoted as Hollywood’s wholesome face. Michael was adopted later, in 1946. At a time when joint custody was virtually unknown, the children remained with their mother after Reagan and Wyman divorced in 1949.

    Comment by Phillip Turner — February 6, 2013 @ 9:40 am

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