My response to Michael Reagan's stupid screed.

On Sunday, Michael Reagan did a column on his getting a horse for Christmas on Dad's ranch in Malibu (Malibu, for crying out loud.)

I couldn't stand it, so I wrote this to the paper for publication:

To the Editors:

I read with increasing disgust Michael Reagan’s little “jewel” of 12/28/03, and would like to ask you: just what are you thinking about?

It is bad enough that if you want any local news that you must subscribe to the Times Herald as Port Huron is too small to support two newspapers, but must you be so utterly insensitive to the problems of the community that you publish that drivel?

His saccharine tale of life on his father’s Malibu Horse Ranch, terminating in the “rich boy gets pony” ending was worthy of being on the gossip page with Michael Jackson, not with the opinions.

Aren’t you reading your own paper? I have read in your publication that homelessness in Port Huron is up 25% and new shelters and soup kitchens for homeless families have opened, there are new plant closings in the Industrial Park, the Downtown continues to spiral downward. Where on Earth is there even room for the “Happy Stories of the Rich and Largely Clueless?”

Perhaps it’s time you re-assessed your complete editorial policy. Your current Hit Parade of opinion columnists mostly features:
· The rants of a college freshman involving his observations on morality and life without a shred of life experience in either,
· The senile meandering of an ex-corporate Financial Officer repeating the political falsehoods of the administration as great truths,
· The Pundits of the Far, Far Right Wing Fringe (Malkin, Reagan, and their ilk) emoting their disgust and denunciation for anyone not of their exact political persuasion,
· Anyone else you can grab that supports a right wing, neo-conservative slant, without any check on their "facts” because they are expressing “opinion.”

I guess since you don’t publish Ann Coulter, I should be grateful for small favors.

I have yet to see one piece written by a NATIONAL liberal columnist for balance. Molly Ivins is part of the same syndicate as Michelle Malkin, yet she is never on your opinion page. James Hightower is writing splendid witty commentary, yet I never see one of his nationally syndicated columns. I could go on, but what’s the point?

Maybe you should remember that the State of Michigan went for Democratic Party candidates for president in the last three elections, so perhaps you may have at least an even split between liberals and conservatives in this area. Your local base of support is not remotely monolithic, and maybe if you were a little more even handed you could even increase your circulation.

However, as far as Michael Reagan’s cute little “I got my PONY!” story, it fell on deaf ears in my house. We are much too busy trying to pay for healthcare, keep our jobs, and avoid bankruptcy court.

Boy did that feel good.

You may not change any minds but you will definitely feel better.

Remember this: A Newspaper is a business

You and I think of newspapers as serving a special function in Democracy, but they, the newspaper owners, know that they are just a business.

As a business, they naturally gravitate toward the Repubs anyway but it actually gets worse than that. Take a look at the ads in the paper (not the classified) the display ads. Business after business after business. This is where their real income is and that is who they pander to.

Thanks for your letter. It touches a harmonic chord here.

Man have you ever heard that guy talk? Whew! Talk about scattered logic strewn with misguided emotions...man is he dense. And I am being nice.

:dunce:

Michael Reagan is rapidly moving up on my list of people who need their asses kicked. Change his last name and this jerk off couldn't get a job putting sprinkles on 7-11 doughnuts.

but this crap pisses me off to the limits , this is all we hear about these days who's who of the rich and how many homes they have and cars and boats and , gee's , can't stand it much longer , thinking all the time , why in the world don't all these wise ass rich people dont' help the needy , the poor help more then the rich in this life , so if ya need a hand i will be there to kick some ass with ya , i to have a list

whenever I hear his name, one of my favorite alltime RR stories come to mind. hope when I get the Alzheimer's I'll still remember this one:

so you'll know it's 'true,' here's a link by wingnut shill James Pinkerton, from a column on the recent ron/nancy movie:

......An irony of "The Reagans" controversy is that one of those attacking the movie is a man who once used his own impeccable Reagan credentials to launch an attack of his own against the real Reagans, Ron and Nancy.

That man is Michael Reagan, the adopted son of the 40th president and his first wife, Jane Wyman. Michael's 1988 memoir, "Michael Reagan: On the Outside Looking In," provides a disturbing, albeit perhaps self-pitying, look at his childhood, much of which was spent in boarding school. On page 89, for example, he recalls a painful confrontation with his step-mother, Nancy, in which the second Mrs. Reagan, brandishing his birth records - which had been sealed by the courts, but which she had nevertheless gotten hold of - suggested that Michael abandon his Reagan surname and leave the family home. He was 16 at the time.

Later in the book, Michael describes how his father didn't even recognize him at his own high school graduation. If the filmmakers had relied solely on such material rather than making stuff up, they would have had an easier time defending their work against the critics.

http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1396

remember that one?

the details are sweet, but I can't, uh, reMEMber them now

just checked amazon.....you can get his awesome autobio for a BUCK and a quarter!!!!!!!!

think I'll wait til it goes down another buck.

think I'll wait.........forever

I read his autobio when he wrote it. All the time RR was in office, Michael wasn't even on speaking terms with him. He was a speedboat racer at the time, and RR wrote him a letter asking him to stop using his name in his promo letters. RR and Nancy didn't even acknowledge Michael's children, all the while promoting Nancy's "Foster Grandparents" program.

Seems that since his "dad" has become a veg, he's invented a new childhood for himself, since there's no one to refute it now.

The "knowing smirk"?

About 6 months back, someone on this board described a similar expression on Sean Hannity as:

"The self-assured smirk of a glory hole regular with a mouthful of freshly felched semen."

I have not heard this typical smirk of the neocon described as well since.