President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime

Rating:
Summary: balanced and informative
Review: I was surprised that given Cannon's closeness to the Reagans he could write a book that was very objective and at times unflattering towards its subject. It also provides interesting information about Reagan's earlier life without being too touchy-feely.

Rating:
Summary: Short of great
Review: If you want to read a biography of Ronald Reagan as President, this is probably the best current choice, and is certainly a good alternative to the bizarre, disappointing Morris book. Cannon does a good job of detailing Reagan's rather unique personality and how it led to both spectacular successes and spectacular failures.

The one thing that bothered me about the book is that it is not written chronologically. Rather, each chapter -- and they are long chapters -- discusses a separate topic, i.e. the economy, the Cold War, etc. The event that you read about in one chapter may be going on at the same time as something you read about in another chapter, but you have no idea. In the end, you do not get any sense or feel for the times.

Rating:
Summary: A win for the Gipper and his admirers
Review: If you wanted one man to write a book on the Reagan presidency, it would have to be Lou Cannon. Cannon, who covered the Gipper as a journalist for nearly three decades, doesn't disappoint his audience. His book is not an exploration into Ronald Reagan the man. Rather, it is a thorough and lucid trip through the Reagan administration. You'll relive the highlights of the 1980s, including the budget battles of 1981, the invasion of Grenada, and the INF Treaty with the Soviet Union. You'll also be confronted with some of the shortcomings of the Reagan presidency, inlcuding the Iran-Contra affair and the annual budget deficits. Cannon is somewhat detached from Reagan, which can be a positive attribute in a biographer, but the author is too reluctant to embrace his subject. His reporting of the Reagan presidency is first-class but his analysis of the 1980s is too negative. Biographers like to present their subjects as complex characters who do both good and bad things. And indeed, Reagan is no exception. But the balance of information in Cannon's book, whether he realizes it or not, supports the assertion that Reagan was one of our greatest presidencies. Most important was Reagan's instrumental role in peacefully eradicating communism from the earth. He indeed had a vital partnership with Mikhail Gorbachev in this task. Conservatives and liberals do themselves a disservice when they give one man all the credit at the expense of the other. The truth is that both men were crucial to one of the brightest and significant events of the century. Cannon makes this point well. Cannon is a little more reluctant to give Reagan credit for the economic recovery of the 1980s. Budget-wise, this may be a fair judgement. Indeed, Reaganomics turned out to be a false promise. Tax rates in 1989 were the same as in 1981 and government spending was much, much higher. But Reagan deserves credit for holding the line against a Democratic Congress at odds with his vision. Reaganomics was more successful in fighting inflation, where the president gave crucial support to the Federal Reserve in its efforts to restore monetary sanity, and also in defending free trade against protectionists and laying the groundwork for both NAFTA and GATT. Cannon puts too much emphasis on the Iran-Contra affair, which history has denigrated to less than a footnote, but his analysis of U.S. involvement in Lebanon is important and sobering. The overall perspective, however, is a bright one. No man did more to replenish America's confidence and unity, after two decades of despair and disunity, than Ronald Wilson Reagan. A true patriot, Reagan was proud to be an American. His service as president made it possible for millions of citizens to share his faith. After reading Cannon's opus, you'll understand why.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty objective book
Review: In spite of being commies lover / he symphatizes with dozen or so people who lost their jobs during McCarthy era, but does not mention milions who lost theirs lifes in soviet gulags/, Lou Cannon gives pretty objective picture of Ronald Reagan presidency.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book on Reagan
Review: In this week's observances of the death and burial of Ronald Reagan, the near-invisibility of his official biographer Edmund Morris is only underscored by the near-ubiquity of Lou Cannon. With Morris's disappointing "Dutch" already gathering dust, a decade of effort wasted, Cannon's "President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime" is more and more becoming recognized as the best biography yet written of America's fortieth president.

This is as it should be. As Gerald Seib notes in today's Wall Street Journal, Cannon was seen even before the Gipper's election in 1980 as "the journalistic world's foremost authority on Reagan." He was "the only reporter Reagan knew well." In "Role of a Lifetime," Cannon employs this knowledge and access without abusing it. In calling the presidency a "role," Cannon doesn't join the ranks of those who (still) demean Reagan as "just an actor." Instead, he provides a sophisticated look at how Reagan viewed the office: not simply the nation's premier technocrat or legislative whip, but as a position with important symbolic and inspirational functions. After the dismal Carter years, America (and the world) needed a president who understood just what Theodore Roosevelt meant by the office as a "bully pulpit."

In recognizing Reagan's insight -- without either belittling or overpraising it -- Cannon has given himself a solid foundation on which to build a narrative rich in research, story, and understanding. People who come out of this week desiring to know more about this remarkable man and his impact on the world could do much worse than to start by reading Lou Cannon's "Role of a Lifetime."

Rating:
Summary: cross between a psychological portrait and a history book
Review: Let me first say what this book is and isn't. The book is a cross between a psychological novel - in that it analyzes all the time Reagan's thoughts and motives behind his actions - and a history book - in that it deals almost exclusively with the eight years of Reagan's presidency (but in great detail : it is some 800 pages long).

The psychological description is so convincing that, after having read this book, one feels almost familiar with this enigmatic figure. Although Cannon doesn't state so himself, most readers will walk away from this book convinced Reagan was fundamentally a decent man, a revolutionary visionary yet at the same time a poor all-round manager.

Question remains : does a country like the US need a manager at all times, or is it sometimes important to have a visionary who articulates a vision and pulls along a whole nation ? Cannon doesn't answer this question, because his field of vision for this book is limited to only 8 years (although he makes it clear that Reagan was genuine when he offered to share Star Wars technology with Gorbatjov in order to make nuclear weapons obsolete).

Looking at the US from across the Atlantic now, I can't help thinking how the US has been transformed during eight years of Reagan from a demoralized country, militarily in retreat before the Soviet Union and economically worried about Japan and Germany, into a confident country again for the first time since Vietnam. For this Reagan and his infectious optimism (similar to Churchill's courage 60 years ago in Britain) must get more credit than any other person. He doesn't get it from Cannon because of the narrow historical scope of the book.

If you want to know the big picture and Reagan's place in history, this isn't the book for you. If you want to get to know this man better from somebody who knew him first hand (and who seems to have liked Reagan despite all his weaknesses), this book is excellent, but long.

Rating:
Summary: THE book on the Reagan Presidency
Review: Like Clinton and GW Bush, Reagan will be argued over for decades to come. Did he win the Cold War? Did he bust the budgets sending us into mountains of debt? Did he bring about the great economic times of the 1980s? Did he just put a smile over the real problems of regular Americans? And what about Iran-Contra? Your answers depend on your political ideology. Both conservatives and liberals will stretch, bend, and lie to make Reagan's achievements or dissapointments match up with their ideological bent. These wing-nuts will ignore tons of facts that argue against their position. This will also be the case for Clinton and GW Bush. So it is.

Cannon, however, has written the single greatest book on the Reagan Presidency. Unlike the liberals who took pot-shots shortly after Reagan left office, or the conservatives who are trying to rewrite the past with overly glowing accounts, Cannon wrote a book whose format should be followed for every president after they leave office: thoroughness and fairness. Cannon, who covered the Reagan White House for the Washington Post, was so much more than just a journalist when he wrote "Role of a Lifetime." He was part political scientist, part psychobiographer, a small part memoirist, and, indeed, he still didn't forget the writing skills of a well-trained journalist.

If you're a hardcore conservative or liberal, you will not love this book. It doesn't kiss Reagan's ass, nor does it only tear him apart. The man did some good and some bad in the White House. Cannon does as good a job as possible in being fair about it.

Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Reagan Work
Review: Lou Cannon began covering Ronald Reagan just before he launched his political career running for governor of California as a political reporter assigned to the Sacramento state capital scene with the San Jose Mercury-News. He continued that coverage when Reagan assumed the governor's office in 1965 until when he stepped down after serving two terms in January 1975. When Reagan became immersed in the national picture, beginning his quest for the presidency, Cannon was there, ultimately covering his entire two terms as president with the Washington Post. His ready access to Reagan and extensive knowledge of the politician and the man provided him with an excellent position to provide the definitive work on the Reagan presidency, which he impressively fulfills with this insightful volume.

With his strong ideologically conservative roots, Reagan has been subjected to polarization in the manner that liberal politician Robert Kennedy was as well. In each case, the man is a lot more complex than stereotypical label pinning and instant analysis reveals. Opponents of Reagan depict him as someone wholly out of his depth and disengaged in the important elements of running a government. Reagan devotees see him as a man of brilliant instincts who, while not exceptionally well read or cerebral, had an uncanny instinct for doing the right thing.

The Reagan that emerges in the pages of Cannon's book is someone with impressive social gifts, leading to the ability to be liked in the manner of previous popular presidents such as FDR and Eisenhower who was, at the same time, highly passive in key areas and all too quick to rely on subordinates to make policy. At the same time, on certain issues about which he strongly felt, he would become actively engaged, seeking to carry out those policies, even if he many times had only a sketchy knowledge of the particulars.

This dichotomy within Reagan ultimately cost him dearly in the case of Iran-Contra, after which he rallied in an area that shocked his supporters of the hard right, that of arms control and a mutually beneficial rapport he developed with Soviet boss Mikhail Gorbachev.

Lou Cannon was there from the beginning of Reagan's career to its end and the closeness of the involvement definitely shows as one reads about the Reagan presidency.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I voted for the guy
Review: Lou Cannon gives a very thorough (sometimes too thorough) account of the Reagan presidency and the man. It's well done and it's balanced in its assessments. As much as Cannon tries to point out his strengths, however, Reagan comes across as weak, indecisive, and detached. I can't believe I voted for the guy.

Rating:
Summary: Where even a 7 year olds imagination is made sinister
Review: Reagan stirs great froth on both sides of the dogmatic isle. The Right love Reagan for his results and character they claim returned pride in America. The Left hates him for his results and character the Right claims returned pride in America. Read either side and in the span of a few paragraphs, word choice, associations and missing information craft Reagan as either a Caesar or a delusional mad man bent on world war.

Cannon's book is no different. Not to say there are not valuable bits of information, but so overwhelmingly does Cannon show his loathing of Reagan that he seems unable to write an historical text. We find that as a boy Reagan claimed to have found a theatrical play so absorbing that he felt part of it. (Don't we all?) Like attacks on Hillary's conversations with Eleanor, this becomes an indication of Reagan's inability to distinguish fact from fiction. When Reagan became distant or openly ignored proceedings of meetings, it was not that he was politely queuing his staff to move on, but rather an example of ignorance and obliviousness. Reagan's nature to make others feel comfortable with humor or Hollywood stories is made to show he was out of touch and just another dumb actor, like those fawned over for their insights on Iraq. A youthful Reagan protest at Eureka (cause unspecified) is equated with the 60's - but we find Reagan accepting of only his own narrow cause, not that of peace movements burning down campus. Reagan's economic success is accompanied with the line that "not everyone was doing better" (does anyone really believe this is even possible?) and since Reagan sneered at welfare abuse, both are used as proof he was insensitive, ignoring that Reagan lived through a Depression era when standing in a soup line was not an entitlement but personally shameful, though necessary.

If you despise Reagan, Cannon will reinforce that orthodoxy. If you love Reagan, Cannon will only serve to irritate. If you want to know more about Reagan from a point of view you recognize from the outset as opposed to him, this book may provide additional information not seen elsewhere as Cannon spent a lifetime observing.