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Leno Reminds Brokaw That He Dissed Reagan in a 1983 issue of Mother Jones

When Tom Brokaw appeared on The Tonight Show Friday night to promote his new book, Boom!: Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today, Jay Leno surprised him by asking him about a 1983 Mother Jones interview in which Brokaw offered a surprisingly blunt assessment of Ronald Reagan.

In the interview, conducted by Frank Browning and appearing in the April 1983 issue, Brokaw opined that Reagan's values were "simplistic," that he had no understanding of the challenges faced by the poor, and that supply-side economic theory was a "disaster." In responding to Leno's question about the response to his interview, Brokaw made it sound like Nancy Reagan was the only one who had a problem with it. In fact, the interview set off a wave of criticism, with Brokaw getting hammered hard by conservatives, and even some liberal columnists, for his harsh assessment of Reagan:

At an NBC annual meeting not long afterwards, Brokaw apologized, prompting Mother Jones's then-editor Deirdre English to call him up and prod him about backing down. Brokaw turned on the charm and did his best to sweet talk English, telling her, among other things, that he was very fond of the Hayes Street Grill, a San Francisco seafood restaurant, and that the next time he was in town he was going to take her to dinner there. (The promised dinner never took place.)

Here's a quick sampling of what Brokaw had to say about Ronald Reagan in the 1983 interview:

On Reagan's values: "Pretty simplistic. Pretty old-fashioned. And I don¹t think they have much application to what¹s currently wrong or troubling a lot of people. His values are kind of Norman Rockwell-ish, Reader's Digest America, 1924... Nor do I think he really understands the enormous difficulty a lot of people have in just getting through life, because he¹s lived in this fantasy land for so long."

On supply-side economics: "But I thought from the outset that his "supply side" [theory] was just a disaster. I knew of no one who felt that it was going to work, outside of a small collection of zealots in Washington and at USC—Arthur Laffer, Jack Kemp. What I thought quite outrageous was the business community, which for years carped and complained that it could never get a President sympathetic to its needs, finally got its champion, Ronald Reagan. Then, to its horror, it discovered that he was actually going to press ahead with supply side—a theory whose disastrous consequences businesspeople began desperately to prepare for, but did not publicly warn the rest of the country about. They knew it simply could not work. But what they did was look to their own little life raft and not to anyone else's."

On Reagan's attitude toward big business: "I think this guy, however, is far more sympathetic than [other presidents] have been, far more willing to go to greater length to make sure big business gets what it wants. Big business has more direct access to him. There's less to offset big business'influence on Ronald Reagan, from a political point of view, than there has been on any other president in the past."

—By Richard Reynolds

Comments

The same Party is in the White House Today! Vote for Obama for Change.

Posted by: MSO on 02/04/08 at 7:52 PM Respond

The effects of the Reagan WH are still felt today.

There is change afoot.

Posted by: capt on 02/04/08 at 8:45 PM Respond

Regan was no hero and he does not deserve to have highways and schools named after him. He should be slammed more often for the crook that he was.

Posted by: deedubya on 02/04/08 at 9:20 PM Respond

Ronald Reagan rescued the U.S. economy from the malaise caused by Jimmy Carter, restored honor to the U.S. military and won the Cold War without firing a shot.
His Presidency was imperfect for sure, but lets be fair.

Posted by: Charlie on 02/05/08 at 5:12 AM Respond

"Ronald Reagan rescued the U.S. economy from the malaise caused by Jimmy Carter, restored honor to the U.S. military and won the Cold War without firing a shot."

Complete BS.

The Reagan meme lives on . . .

Get real. Read some history. Divorce yourself from the emotion and the facts are thus. Reagan's policies are why we are in the mess we are in today.

That is unles you think something (anything) trickled down?

Vitually matched Carters annual GDP of 3.4%?

What malaise? Big business and mega bankers did eveything to cook Carters books to get the first real friend to big business into office - Reagan.

Reagan the homophobe let AIDS get a strong foothold in America. Millions have died - wadda guy, eh? `

Let's be fair? Really?

Posted by: capt on 02/05/08 at 5:40 AM Respond

A friend of mine's mother was a friend of Ronald Reagan from his hometown days. Both her and her husband grew up with him, and seemed to have been chums. She was widowed early in life with two boys to raise. They exchanged letters over the years and he would stop over on his way to and from the west coast to
Washington for dinner or whatever. The letters were stored by her family after her death. A few years ago, after Ronald had passed, the family member who was in charge of keeping them, went looking for them. They were no where to be found. As they had never been burgalized or broken into, it is a puzzle to this day. Mostly, it was only the few remaining family members who knew of their existence - and the Reagans.
One other thing, to those of us who were alive prior to the election of Reagan, we were upset that every commercial channel of TV carried Ronald's "B" movies repeatedly for over six months before the main election. Anyone familiar with social programming techniques would know what this meant. However, not once was it mentioned in the main media then, or today.

Posted by: Jay Coleman on 02/05/08 at 6:06 AM Respond

It is tough to tell the truth in this country!

Posted by: Rigby on 02/05/08 at 10:00 AM Respond

Great mind, IMHO...

Tom Brokaw has a great mind and does his homework and excellent writer. So so comedian.

Jay Leno has some quick wit and great writers who do his homework to support his agenda.

Ronald Reagan had others do his homework, good speaker, so so comedian but not a great mind.

Most of us Americans don't like to do homework, not great at comedy and not so great at writing (myself included).

Why do we suppose we also ALL have great minds when we opine on politicians?

It's funny, Repubs like the economic changes over last 20 years, but hate the social changes. Dems hate the economic changes but like the social change.

The new conservatives are voting based upon values because that's all they'll have left when their buddies take away their wages and healthcare. Isn't that like being an impoverished intellectual?

Posted by: Dan on 02/05/08 at 10:23 AM Respond

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Posted by: 出会いサイト on 08/12/08 at 10:33 PM Respond

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Posted by: 出会いサイト on 08/12/08 at 10:36 PM Respond