NOT a single jelly bean remained unturned in the weeklong interment of Ronald Reagan, but a week later there's one question that still hasn't been laid to rest: what in heaven's name was going on?
Was this runaway marathon of mourning prompted by actual grief? A vast right-wing conspiracy? A vast reservoir of displaced sorrow about the war in Iraq? Global warming? Whatever it was about, it was not always about Ronald Reagan. His average approval rating in office was lower than that of many modern presidents, including each George Bush. His death at 93, after a full life and a long terminal illness, was neither tragic nor shocking. And in 2004, his presidency was far from the center of American consciousness. The cold war that he "won" (with no help from the Poles, the Czechs, Mikhail Gorbachev, the first President Bush or anyone else, mind you) had dropped into the great American memory hole in our age of terrorism, along with his administration's support of incipient bin Laden-style Islamic militants in Afghanistan.
Of course, Reagan's funeral was must-see TV. But then there was all the rest of it. You knew things had gotten out of hand when CNN's Anderson Cooper invited an expert from the "Grief Recovery Institute" to instruct the nation: "Today I'm saying we need to feel sad." Or when C-Span broadcast uninterrupted late-night video of Americans trooping past Reagan's coffin in the Capitol's rotunda. (Though those mourners were often touted as representative of the entire nation, you could nod off counting the white visitors before a black person appeared.) Even those voting at the Web site of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, that permanent shrine to all things Reagan, decided by a slightly larger than the Gore-Bush margin by the week's end that the coverage was "too much" (36 percent to 34, when I checked).
(snip)
So went the seven days of Reagan. As we now know, the former president's aides and family had devised some of the settings years in advance through a secret plan they code-named Operation Serenade: the camera angles and sunset timing of the California service, the distribution of 50,000 small American flags to extras organized along the route. Such Old Hollywood cinematic touches no doubt seemed clever when the Reaganauts first hatched them, but by the time of Reagan's death they were as dated as "Bedtime for Bonzo." The post-O. J. arsenal of media weapons all but upstaged the prissy soundstage pageantry. Unchanging, lachrymose platitudes were repeated histrionically again and again day after day, padded out with faux controversies (will Reagan wipe Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill, Alexander Hamilton off the $10 bill, or J.F.K. off the half-dollar?) and the musings of third-tier experts like Gahl Burt, "former Reagan social secretary." When all else failed, non-celebrated victims of Alzheimer's were rolled on to CNN to supply some collateral tragedy. Network anchors interviewed former colleagues like Cokie and Sam, who were happy to airbrush the history of the presidency they covered as payoff for reliving their own salad days as TV stars.
more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/06/20/arts/20RICH.html
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