Ann Coulter, in a rare bit of honesty, referred to Reagan in a recent column as 'our hero'.
The 'our' is interesting. Who do you suppose she might figure fits within that group of which she is member?
And the 'hero' is, to me, even more interesting. It's been evident for a while now that a mythology was forming up around Reagan (he brought down the Soviet Union single-handedly etc), and the recent successful campaign to have CBS not broadcast the made for tv movie was an indication that some folks very much wish to preserve a particular understanding of Reagan.
The following is from a piece on Leo Strauss, the 'patron saint', one might say and many do say, of the present crop of neoconservatives...
Quote:Straussians love Lincoln and they love him for a couple of reasons, one of which is that he was not reluctant to set the law aside when he felt it was necessary. But they also venerate Lincoln because he quite consciously set about the business of constructing a mythology about American identity, a patriotic mythology. Lincoln made the claim, in his Lyceum speech in 1838, that those who had had the experience of fighting for the establishment of the country in the Revolution were dying out as a generation and that future generations would have to revive this experience through myths and stories that they told about this founding generation. And that is what Straussians do in terms of American culture, primarily through the myth of the Founding Fathers, the notion of this aristocratic elite that established America and the way that it is established. So Lincoln is a very important figure for them because he resorted to tyrannical measures when he had to and because he sought to mythically restore heroic virtues.
http://www.logosjournal.com/xenos.htm
ps...this is a 13 page document if you print it out, but I highly recommend it. There's much in here quite delicious and precisely relevant to this administration.
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