News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Nooner Redux (Is it Noonan or is it Not?)
by Barry Friedman
(First appeared at The Politics Blog with Charles P. Pierce (esquire.com)
I remember in Iceland, Reykjavik to be accurate (and, oh, I love accuracy and redundancy), Reagan, cold, buttoned up in a smart overcoat, outside his limo, his cheeks red from--how do I say this?--the cold ... shivering, shaking Gorbachev’s hand. Yes, Reagan, so in need of a hat, a muffler, a scarf, finally got to say “Nyet” to a Soviet leader. But at what cost? A cold, a flu, sinus ache. The man was fearless. His strength became ours. Oh, how I wanted to bolt from the warm place where they kept us staffers, a place with hot chocolate and marshmallows and these ... these scones, I think, and, yes, the warm bodies--strapping young bodies from the motorcade. I remember one in particular--and warm him, our president, my president. I think of this president, though--this man in Ronald Reagan’s White House. Who, other than his daughters, would jump the fence line and give him a good squeeze, a hug that would lift him off the ground, a cup of joe, a peck on the cheek?
I grieve he is so alone; I understand why.
He is of here, perhaps--yes, yes, he is. I will not go down the long, painful pier that leads to Kenya and Muslim schools and Somali warlords--but not from here. He will return to Chicago or Honolulu and he’ll put on his sandals and Bears paraphernalia and jeans that come up too high and he’ll wonder why he, like Michael Corleone, is respected but why Ronald Reagan, like Don Tommasino, is loved.
He'll wonder why there is no talk of Rushmore or his name on federal buildings in Sarasota.
I weep at the difference.
I smile at the difference.
I had cocoa with one.
I would have warmed one.
I would warm him still.
The cheeks, so red, so cold. So American.
So much a part of me ... still.
Ahem
Peggy Noonan