Bush: Trying to Claim Reagan as His Father

I don't always agree with Maureen Dowd of The Times. But her column for today (6-10) makes sense:

Sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a nation mourn. And sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a paternity suit.

At every opportunity, as the extraordinary procession solemnly wended its way from California to the Capitol, W. was peeping out from behind the majestic Reagan mantle, trying to claim the Gipper as his true political father.

Finally, there's a flag-draped coffin and military funeral that President Bush wants to be associated with, and wants us to see. (It's amazing they could find enough soldiers, given Rummy's depletion of the military.)

"His heart belongs to Reagan," Ken Duberstein declared about Mr. Bush on CNN, in a riff on the old Cole Porter ditty "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." W. "is that bold-stroked primary-colors leader that—— somebody who has this big vision and wants to stick to it." (Well, the two presidents do share a middle initial.)

The Bush-Cheney re-election Web site was totally given over to a Reagan tribute, with selected speeches, including "Empire of Ideals" — too bad we didn't just stick to ideals — and "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc," President Reagan's 1984 Normandy speech, played so often last Sunday that it eclipsed W. at Normandy.

Bush hawks were visibly relieved to be on TV answering questions that had nothing to do with prison torture, phantom W.M.D. or our new C.I.A.-operative-turned-prime-minister in Iraq. What a glorious respite to extol a strong, popular, visionary Republican president who spurred democracy in a big backward chunk of the world — even if it isn't W., and it's the Soviet bloc and not the Middle East.

Showing they haven't lost their taste for hype, some Bushies revved up the theme that Son of Bush was really Son of Reagan.

Never mind that back in 1989, the deferential Bush père couldn't wait to escape the Gipper's Brobdingnagian shadow. Though he liked Ronald Reagan, 41 had a secret disdain for 40's White House. He was dismayed by the way media wizards treated the president like a prop and the Oval Office like an M.G.M. set. He and Barbara, who divide the world into peers and "the help," also hated being treated like "the help" by the Reagans, who did not have them upstairs at the residence for dinner and who did not always thank them for presents...

The Bush crowd's attempt to wrap themselves in Reagan could go only so far. While Laura Bush and Donald Rumsfeld shared memories of fathers who had suffered from Alzheimer's, Mrs. Bush said she could not support Mrs. Reagan's plea to remove the absurd and suffocating restrictions on stem cell research.

Whether he was right or wrong, Ronald Reagan was exhilarating. Whether he is right or wrong, George W. Bush is a bummer.