I'm back
Some minor comments.1. Ronald Reagan. I imagine history will think much less of Reagan than it appears now, but on the whole I had rather a soft spot for him. Obviously after 1986 things went downhill, and he probably should have been impeached over Iran-Contra, but until then he managed to avoid making any huge mistakes. On most issuse I, like most Europeans, tend to emphasise too much the President's power and not enought those in Congress, and in the domestic field it's hard to really think of anything particularly bad or good that you can hold Reagan responsible for. Brad De Long suggests his deficits cut growth by a non-neglible amount, but there's too many 'what ifs' to make much of this, I would think.
In foreign policy a President has more power and here is record is decidely mixed. In Lebanon he behaved in exactly the way American conservatives (wrongly) charged the Spanish with behaving in the face of terrorist attacks - he cut and run. In Latin & South America his policies were particularly poor, and over Iran-Contra criminal. That leaves his big moment, which was victory in the cold war. Again this has probably been overstated, with the benefit of hindsight the Soviet Union was always going to be in trouble in the 1980s and 1990s, with its economy grinding to a halt. Nevertheless Reagan deserves some credit for sticking to the simple prescription of freedom vs evil (however flawed that was) and not making a bodge of things when arms control offers were made.
Finally of course no-one can fail to be touched by Nancy Reagan's devotion to her late husband over the last ten years (and before) and one can only hope that once the great sadness of the present has lessened she can now have a fulfilling life in the years remaining to her.
2. The death of a BBC cameraman and the serious injuries sustained by reporter Frank Gardiner in a shooting in Saudi Arabia. This terrible news reminds us again, as we sit typing away in the safety of our homes, the risks that foreign correspondents face just doing their jobs. It also reminds us that though I like to laugh at those on the Right whgo believe journalists should be tortured (professionally IIRC) merely for disagreeing with them over the best way to fight terrorists, it's actually not a laughing matter.
3. Barcelona is possibly my favourite city in Europe (except British ones). The idea of plonking a huge city next to a beach is audacious, and brilliant.
posted by Matthew @ 6/07/2004 08:40:00 AM
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