In my travels to college campuses, I've occassionally been asked by young conservatives: "What's the best book to read on the Reagan years?" I recommend The Real Reagan Record, which isn't a book at all but a National Review number from 1992. Everything you want to know about the Reagan presidency is there. Years ago I xeroxed the entire issue. You needn't, since it's now available online. But you should read it.
"The Real Reagan Record" hit at the height of left-wing Reagan revisionism. As Bill Clinton's political prospects rose, Reagan-bashing became de rigueur. National Review countered the political rhetoric with hard reality. For me, it is the most memorable issue of the magazine. I suggest it for college students because I read it as a college freshman. It provided copious amounts of ammunition against the less-than-Reaganite professors who populate Amherst, Massachusetts.
The issue is important because it dispels so many liberal myths. Think the rich got richer and the poor got poorer during the 1980s? Think again. Split into five income brackets, all classes saw their incomes rise--in sharp contrast to the Carter years when the poor really did get poorer. The 1980s are often called the Decade of Greed; strangely, the Reagan years witnessed an upsurge in charitable giving. If the 1981 tax cuts caused larger deficits, why did lower taxes correspond with a doubling of federal revenues?
When the facts about the 1980s proved inconvenient, Reagan's opponents simply invented new ones. I'll take the facts over the "facts" any day of the week.
From the liberal collection of "inconvenient facts" let me suggest, "Sleepwalking Through History," by Haynes Johnson and the very detailed, "Firewall" by Judge Lawrence E. Walsh. The latter's investigation of the Iran-Contra conspiracy was finally ended when the Bush Administration's Christmas Eve pardons of Caspar Weinberger and five other Reagan administration defendents turned out the lights. Mary McGory called it "...that adventure in lawlessness and unconstitutional government,"
Guido
