Some Republicans are gunning for the upcoming CBS miniseries "The Reagans." Apparently the script doesn't discuss the greatness of the "Reagan recovery" (1983-89) following the Reagan recession (1981-83), or other GOP talking points.

It does feature Ronald Reagan suggesting that AIDS was punishment for gay "sin" (he clearly suspected it). One character states Reagan was an FBI informer in the days of the Hollywood blacklist (he was). It shows Nancy Reagan as a chilly mother (she was). And so on.

A couple of points are worth making here. First, TV treatments of U.S. presidents, documentaries and dramas alike, always focus on personality and private life, and tell us little about public policy. I don't recall anything on tax policies in "Jefferson in Paris."

Second, many in the GOP today are bent on propagating a reverential view of their party's recent leaders — from the fictionalized, unrecognizably heroic George W. Bush seen in Showtime's recent "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," to CNN's presentation of George H. W. Bush's heroic World War II exploits, to the demand for a heroic recollection of "Dutch." See the pattern? Nothing but "honor and dignity" in these White Houses.

The push to mythologize Reagan's regime is perhaps the weirdest part of this program. In 1989, as he left office, Reagan was widely seen as an embarrassment. The man himself seemed addled; Iran-contra had clouded his presidency in criminal intrigue; agencies like HUD and FEMA stood exposed as cesspools of corruption.

On the economic front, Reagan's tripling of the national debt, the massive flow of wealth out of the country and the replacement of lost manufacturing jobs with low-wage service jobs during the "Reagan recovery," were recognized as the burdensome legacy of his engorge-the-rich economic program. The last thing Reaganauts should wish for is an emphasis on his economic record.

Republicans have worked doggedly to alter the public memory of a failed policy regime. This matters to them because they continue to sell their current proposals as following in the Reagan tradition. As usual, those with other views have been less energetic, never imagining that history could be rewritten so boldly. A student once told me, after reviewing some of the basic facts, "I never realized what a crappy president Reagan was." If today's GOP has its way, the media will be browbeaten into dishing out a different kind of "stuff" where the history of the 1980s is concerned.

Rossinow is associate professor of history at Metropolitan State University.

Copyright 1996-2003 Knight Ridder

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