Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future (Hardcover)

~ Will Bunch (Author)
Key Phrases: fortieth president, Ronald Reagan, White House, Cold War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an attempt to challenge the legend that has sprung up around Ronald Reagan's presidency over the past decade, Bunch, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, argues that the Reagan myth is dangerous because, unlike other American presidents held up as heroes, like Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson, reverence for Reagan did not emerge organically. Rather, the GOP hatched the Reagan myth, feeding it to the news media for purposes that were essentially partisan in nature... pulling off a maneuver that was unprecedented in American history. The result has been a simplified reconstruction of Reagan, from far from universally popular president to the man who ended the Cold War and spurred unprecedented economic growth. Bunch contends Reagan was responsible for neither, at least not singlehandedly. Instead, he claims that the 40th president's real achievement lay in his ability to compromise, an element of his leadership conservatives have ignored since he left office. Neither Bunch's arguments nor his prose are powerful enough to do more than slightly tarnish Reagan's halo, but his book capably puts into perspective an imperfect but fascinating administration. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* The Ronald Reagan who won the cold war, cut taxes, shrank the government, saved the economy, and was the most beloved president since FDR is a myth, Bunch says. The cold war fizzled out primarily because of Soviet economic collapse. Reagan cut taxes just once, in 1991, and thereafter raised them yearly. He vastly expanded the government and burdened the economy with enormous deficits. Moreover, his approval ratings were just average, reflecting his divisiveness as a political figure. Bunch also shows that however tough-talking, Reagan was a negotiator who achieved nuclear arms reductions by talking with Soviet leader Gorbachev and got into the Iran-Contra mess because he wouldn’t send combat troops abroad. In practice, especially of foreign policy, he was a pragmatist, not an ideologue. The truculent jingoist of the myth was concocted after Alzheimer’s silenced the man and the would-be juggernaut launched by the GOP’s 1994 election triumph crashed and burned before a Democratic president who shrank government and the deficit, balanced the budget, and even racked up surpluses. Bunch names the leading, venal mythmakers and shames the myth exploiters, too. Anyone interested in America’s immediate future should read this book. --Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 141659762X
• ISBN-13: 978-1416597629
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and Fair, So There..., March 25, 2009

By	Hank Drake (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Ronald Reagan was out of the public eye for the ten years preceding his death. During his time in office, and in his first five years out of office, there was an anti-Reagan backlash. (Even George H. W. Bush had a small hand in that, when he spoke of a "kinder and gentler" America, Nancy Reagan was said to have asked, "Kinder and gentler than who?") Numerous critical books were written about Reagan both during and immediately after his presidency.

After Reagan movingly went public with his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994, negative criticism in print and on the broadcast media ceased - partly out of respect, but mostly because publishers thought negative books on Reagan would not sell. The former president was consigned to the mist of hagiography. By the time he died in 2004, there were serious calls for memorialization such as adding his visage to the dime and even to Mount Rushmore.

It takes time to look back at history with real perspective.

Two books have been recently published which attempt to present an alternative perspective on the Reagan presidency. One, William Kleinecht's The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, is revisionist polemic and does more to enrage than enlighten. Will Bunch's Tear Down this Myth, however, is a fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase popular with right-wingers) look at the Reagan presidency. Far from polemic, and often complimentary to President Reagan, Bunch attempts to reveal the presidency of Ronald Reagan as it was experienced by those during the era. Many of the negative reviews appearing on Amazon are obviously written by those who didn't read the book. As I've said before, Amazon needs to look more carefully at reviews before publishing them. This is not a chat board.

The difference between Reagan and George W. Bush, Bunch implies, is that while Reagan had a general philosophy (lower taxes, deregulate the market, stand tall against the Soviets), Bush was dogmatically rigid. True, Reagan signed a massive (and warranted) tax cut in 1981. But he signed six tax increases in the years that followed. Despite what idolaters parrot, the '81 tax cut did not spur economic recovery, but preceded an even deeper recession than the one Reagan inherited. Faced with a Democratic controlled House, Reagan had to compromise on many of his programs. After proposing draconian entitlement cuts in 1981 (anyone remember "ketchup is a vegetable?"), Reagan realized they would never sell and backed off. Ever the pragmatist, Reagan worked with House Speaker Tip O'Neill (who were poles apart politically but enjoyed each others' company) to reform Social Security. He also signed immigration reform and programs to improve health care for the catastrophically ill. Talking tough against the Soviets, Reagan nevertheless was able to hammer out agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev which did more to reduce Cold War tensions than the détente favored by his predecessors. (He also became so worried about increasing tensions in 1983 that he considered inviting Yuri Andropov to an emergency summit.)

But Reagan made mistakes which have been glossed over: including the stationing of Marines in Lebanon and providing aid to Saddam Hussein. The Iran-Contra scandal, which nearly sank his presidency, has been almost forgotten. And the spiraling deficits of the 1980s (repeated 20 years later) proved that the Laffer Curve, which was the cornerstone of Reaganomics, had no basis in actual fact.

How then, did Reagan will two landslides? It's simple. Even though numerous polls showed the American people were leery of his policies, they just liked the guy.

Tear Down this Myth is well researched and Bunch writes in fine, easily readable style. Conservatives have touted Ronald Reagan as America's savior, while Liberals have painted him as the devil incarnate. Reality, as Will Bunch demonstrates, is somewhere in between.

62 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written corrective to the Gipper's inflated legacy, March 27, 2009

By	Jean E. Pouliot (Newburyport, MA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I first ran into the Reagan mythmaking machine when a family member gushed a few years back about how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. Shocking as this statement was to me, I managed to sputter something about how many presidents -- Democrat and Republican -- had contributed to the win, and that Reagan just happened to be there at the end. But I was always unsettled by the claim.

Now, Will Bunch provides a reminiscence of the story of Reagan's presidency -- both the good and the bad. Bunch reminds us that Reagan was not particularly popular during most of his presidency, and that many Americans had good reason to wonder whether the country was in competent hands. Bunch runs over the Iran-Contra scandal, which came close to ending up in Reagan's impeachment. Far from being a thrifty government downsizer, he added $2 trillion to the national debt and grew the government. Bunch also reminds us that Reagan was the original "cut and run" artist, pulling US troops out of a failed mission in Lebanon within weeks after 241 Marines were killed there in a terrorist attack. We are reminded that Reagan's overtures to Iran to free hostages only resulted in more Americans being taken, and that his economic plans sowed the seeds of deregulation and greed that we are still reaping. We also see Reagan, the man who hated committing troops to war, who was a pragmatist economist who raised taxes when his trickle down theories did not working and whose personal diplomacy with the Soviets came close to riding the world of nuclear weapons.

The second half of the book lays out the players involved in turning Reagan into a poster child for ideas that he did not espouse. Grover Norquist and others are shown twisting Reagan into a champion of constant tax cuts, removal of long-time fiscal regulations and intervener in foreign affairs. George W. Bush eagerly wore his mantle. And even Barack Obama is unable to escape his shadow.

Apart from laying out the facts, Bunch writes well and engagingly. And he is fair. I personally have long thought that the invasion of tiny Grenada, coming close on the heels of the Marine barracks disaster, was meant to distract the public from Reagan's ineptitude. Bunch disagrees, pointing out (not completely convincingly) that the invasion had been in the planning for some time. Bunch argues persuasively that Reagan's popularity grew at the end of his presidency only when he had been so weakened by his own blunders that he had to move to the center. And he was fortunate in becoming an Alzheimer's victim, gaining popular sympathy as he left the public stage.

"Tear Down this Myth" is a must read for liberals as well as conservatives -- anyone, really, interested in basing the politics in reality rather than in myths and wishful thinking. With luck, the political climate may finally be right or this kind of accurate accounting.

173 of 227 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Account of the Reagan presidency and myth, January 29, 2009

By	1. "John Henninger" (Littleton, CO United States) - See all my reviews

It has taken a journalist Will Bunch to have written the most objective account of the Reagan presidency. According to Bunch, Ronald Reagan was great at creating an easy storyline that the public could follow as seen in his "tear down the wall," speech and his visit to Normandy in 1984. However his domestic policies were a flop such as tax cuts to the very wealthy that did nothing to improve the American economy in the early years of his presidency. Reagan's foreign policy was not that successful either because the arms build up in the first four years of the eighties actually strenghthened the hands of the Soviet hardliners. While in Latin America and the Middle East, Reagan allowed the problems in these regions to fester and his advisors broke laws with the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan only improved his standing with the public when he took pragmatic steps such as talking with Gorbachev and eventually raising taxes sixteen times during his two terms. When Reagan exited in 1988, journalists and politicians were relunctant to question him about Iran-Contra because they were afraid of another failed presidency.
After Reagan left office, he was rated on a low-average rating by journalists and historians but this perception started to change in 2000. Grover Norquist started the Reagan Legacy Project which made started a campaign to name highways,buildings,an airport, and a aircraft carrier after the former president. When Reagan died in 2004 most of the mainstream journalists took the the myth to heart and did not question some troubling legacies of the fortieth president. This distorted legacy was used by Bush 43 in his insistence on staying in Iraq even though Reagan opposed using military force in combating terrorists and pulled out of Lebanon after a suicide bomber killed 241 marines.Bunch concludes his book by stating that Reagan's greatest failure was rolling back Carter's energy conservation polices that ultimately made the US behind the rest of the industialized world when it comes to the development of alternative energy. The only aspect of the book that Bunch leaves out is how some academics like John Gaddis, Douglas Brinkley, and John Patrick Diggins contributed to the Reagan myth by legitimizing right wing talking points against the actual facts. Despite this minor weakness, Bunch has written the best work about Ronald Reagan and his legacy.