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A Rebuttal of Peggy Noonan’s “Apathy in the Executive” analysis of Obama and Reagan
By Emmanuel Musaazi
Reading Peggy Noonan’s article titled “Apathy in the Executive” her analysis and portrayal of U.S. President Barack Obama as a failed leader in contrast to her former boss president Ronald Reagan and former pope, John Paul II left me riveted and thinking how politics is not only local as the famous cliché goes, but can be also subjective.
Her analysis was contextualized partisanship and cold war politics, based on an ideology that applied about 30 years ago and does not apply in the present, certainly not to Obama’s situation, and in blatant denial of the many times that Obama has shown leadership.
To understand Noonan and her article you need to understand her politics.
Noonan was a speech writer for former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. This was the cold war era a time in history when stark ideology was the paramount credential for good leadership and there was little or no tolerance for nuanced ideas. Maybe this was the prescribed remedy at the time at least with regard to combating communism but not apartheid, another scourge on human conscience at the time.
In the Reagan era, Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist. Indeed Reagan and the then U.K. Prime Minister Thatcher, were “heroes of anticommunism but villains of apartheid”. So wrong were they on the issue of apartheid, that it coursed Archbishop Desmond Tutu – seen by many as a living saint in the realm of Mother Theresa – to denounce Reagan’s South Africa policy as “immoral, evil and totally un-Christian”.
It can be said that Reagan inadvertently aided the growth and rise of present international Jihadism by supporting the Taliban and other Jihadists because of his obsession with toppling communism. Talk about throwing away the baby with the birth water.
Reagan famously declared that the United States would never negotiate with terrorists after the U.S. embassy hostage debacle of the Carter administration but yet was willing to aid and abet them in Afghanistan.
Rather than stay and fight, Reagan cut and run in Lebanon after 241 marines were killed by terrorist bombs.
Reagan failed to lead – or at least show compassion – on civil rights and race issues. He opposed the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965. He is also known for openly opposing Equal Amendments Rights – the amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women.
On the economic front like Obama, Reagan came to office in the midst of an economic crisis. The resurgence of Europe and Japan was undercutting America’s manufacturing edge and the crises in the Middle East had caused an enormous jump in the price of oil. Reagan’s solution was “Reaganomics” i.e. to endorse free trade so called market liberalization which resulted in the relaxation of tariffs and the beginning of out sourcing.
Out sourcing resulted in the depletion of America’s manufacturing base (and jobs), creation of corporate tax heavens and the genesis of the US$16.7 trillion debt that America is saddled with. These policies favored the very rich at the expense of the middle class, the historic engine of American prosperity hitherto. The 2008/09 financial crisis is a culmination of years of “Reaganomics” policies.
Obama has been saddled with the task of cleaning up this mess and re-establishing the middle class. I guess having policies of restore America’s manufacturing base and rejuvenating her economy by plugging corporate tax loopholes, reckless deregulation and ending unsanctioned, unbudgeted wars is a sign of weak leadership in the eyes of the Peggy Noonans of this world.
Emmanuel Musaazi is a college professor based in Toronto, Canada.