After last week’s blast from the baseball past, I took a few minutes to go back and check for other things I thought I’d posted on the Lens years ago. I found a few things here and there, but nothing that had a burning need to see the light of day.
Except this old column. A version of this Reagan rant was originally published in the Kansas City Kansan some time ago. Fortunately, the Gipper’s passing didn’t manage to successfully reignite efforts to get his wizened visage stuck on our money, so perhaps the danger has passed.
No doubt about it. Ronald Reagan doesn’t have enough shit named after him yet.
Sure, he’s got an office building in the middle of downtown D.C. But it’s a small office building, at least in comparison to Langley, Crypto City or the Pentagon. Besides, even Reagan’s most simple-minded supporters must at some level be able to recognize the problem with naming an eternal monument to out-of-control federalism after a man who railed about big government between the breaths he used to inflate a giant wading pool filled to overflow with Byzantine bureaucracy and bloated bail-outs. Better they should have named it the Garn-St. Germain Office Building.
He’s also got an airport. Used to be National. Now it’s Reagan. How touching. One can now take a direct flight from John Wayne Airport in Texas to Ronald Reagan Airport in Virginia. If they’ll just name the goose-poop-coated park to the north of the airport after Roy Cohn, one will be able to make a patriot’s weekend of it.
A nice tribute, but wait. Again, as airports go this one’s a bit on the small side. And as close as it is to Washington landmarks, in the wake of Sept. 11 it’s in constant danger of closure, kept open only by prominent pols with grumpy constituencies. And inappropriateness once again rears its ugly head, this time in the form of an airport named after Ronnie the PATCO Slayer. So as a permanent homage to a man as great as Former President Ronald Reagan, I’m afraid it simply won’t do.
No. We need something more important. More permanent. And if possible, something more prominent. Something that’s in the collective face of the American people.
Postage stamp? Nah. Every mickey moe gets a postage stamp. Bad authors. Athletes. Heck, even women and homosexuals get postage stamps. Heck, for that matter I think the Post Office now has an option that allows customers to customize their own stamps. Where’s the glory in that?
On the flag, perhaps. In place of all those tacky white stars. Nah. Too obvious.
The money. Yeah, how about that? How about putting the Gipster on our money someplace? That way every time anyone so much as ventures into a 7-11 in search of the finest Slurpees known to humanity, she or he will have to pay homage to our dear former leader.
I guess it goes without saying that Republicans have already tried this once. The scheme was to quietly drop Reagan onto the front of the ten dollar bill. The effort came to naught, but the matter is by no means settled.
So where precisely might Ol’ Turkey Neck end up? Coins? Bills? What denomination will those of us who remember his presidency a bit more clearly than most never be able to use in commercial transactions ever again?
The group most directly concerned with the answer to these thorny questions is a difficult set to interview. As pointed out a minute ago, everyone who currently occupies a spot on our money is no longer among the living. While that might pose an insurmountable obstacle for an ordinary, scrupulous journalist, I’m not one to shrink at the prospect of interviewing the dead. Not even guys who have been dead for quite some time. Never you mind how I pulled it off. Trade secret.
But to be honest, a handful of them demurred at the prospect of being interviewed. It goes without saying that the Big Three weren’t about to waste their precious time on a reporter from 8sails.com. George “Welcome to the Hall of Presidents” Washington wouldn’t return phone calls. Ditto Honest Abe. And Thomas Jefferson’s people deigned only to fax me a press release extolling the boss-man’s contributions to the Declaration of Independence and so on. The only reference to currency was a brief diatribe about the indignity of placing such a great patriot on a piece of money used primarily by those who bet on horse races.
On the other hand, even the wealthiest stock swindler or most fanatical Moral Majoritarian wouldn’t dream of trying to bump one of the Big Three. Thus my failure to get any of them to chat with me wasn’t all that much of a loss. Likewise the guys who appear on the bills discontinued in 1942 seemed like dead ends. In a way it was a shame, because I’ve heard Salmon P. Chase is so desperate for attention that he’ll talk for hours to anyone who will listen.
Alexander Hamilton was an entirely different question. The last time conservative simps tried to boost Ronnie onto a bill, they targeted the ten. That’s the spot in the line-up currently occupied by Hamilton. And Hamilton seriously didn’t want to talk about it. Phone call after phone call went unanswered. But a good reporter doesn’t give up on an essential source, and as most likely victim Hamilton was essential for this article.
Finally he caved. Begrudgingly – very begrudgingly – he gave me five minutes.
“Okay, look,” he began. “Here’s the record. I co-wrote the Federalist Papers. I’m well known as the author of Number 78, which supplied the foundation for the American judicial system. I was first Secretary of the Treasury. That alone should cement my spot on the ten for all eternity. And I had one hell of a political career going before I was gunned down by that loser Burr.
“Now I ask you: what the heck did Mister Fabulous Ronald Reagan ever do that compares to my record? That glad-handing, traitor-coddling nincompoop! What are they going to put on the back of the ten? Not the Treasury, which he practically gutted for his precious S&L bailout. Maybe they could decorate it with a picture of the Stinger missiles Mister So-Smart sold to the enemies of the American people. Too bad Reagan wasn’t born a couple hundred years earlier. I bet he and Burr would have gotten along just fine.”
There was more, but it was mostly an extended rant about Aaron Burr that didn’t really have much to do with the matter at hand.
That left me with Jackson (the 20), Grant (the 50) and Franklin (the 100).
Andrew Jackson preferred not to talk on the phone – let alone in person – but he was at least cordial enough to answer an email query. The upshot of his response was that he considered Reagan’s threat fairly small potatoes compared to “the bloody British at the town of New Orleans.”
Ben Franklin was simultaneously more and less responsive. In his defense, I should point out that the Big Three would most likely be the Big Four if Franklin had ever been elected Chief Executive. So really Ben doesn’t have all that much to worry about. But even if he’d had cause for alarm, I seriously question whether he could have expressed it. The poor ol’ guy spends most of his time nowadays hanging around a South Street bistro and speaking mostly in platitudes. He’s all too happy to share them with anyone who asks. They just don’t always match the occasion. For example, his response to “What do you think about the idea of putting Reagan on the currency?” was “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “What if he replaced you on the hundred dollar bill?” “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “Do you think your lifetime achievements should guarantee you an eternal spot on America’s money?” “Dear Prudence, won’t you come on out to play?” “What’s your opinion of Reagan’s contributions to history?” “I’m with stupid.”
Looking back now, maybe he was making more sense than I initially realized.
Of all the interviews conducted for this article, by far the most intriguing was the last. Ulysses S. Grant insisted that I meet him in – of all places – a bar. I was on the wagon at the time, but Grant good-naturedly maintained that as long as I was buying he wouldn’t hold it against me if I didn’t partake. So I didn’t. But he did. Liberally. I think Grant somehow sensed if the assault on Hamilton fell through, the fifty would almost certainly be next. So by the time he had a fifth or so of Jack in him, he was more than ready to share his candid opinion of Mommio Vaquero.
“I can’t believe they’d ever even think of replacing me.” A belch, exaggerated for effect. “I mean sure, I wasn’t the greatest president there ever was. But hey, there’ve been what like 40 presidents now? So that’s me and 38 other guys who weren’t the greatest president there ever was. That Reagan dumbfuck is sure as hell down here with me somewhere.
“And consider my record before I was president. At the head of the Grand Army of the Potomac, I kicked much ass. Much ass, damn it! That sorry bastard Bobby Lee could have told a story or two to anyone who wants to take my place on the fifty. I had that cocksucker in a Bulgarian head-lock! Reagan? Fuck it! Bring him on! I’ll spank that dumbass like a red-headed stepchild!”
At this point in the conversation Grant cut a real thunder-clap of a fart. Then he tried to blame it on me, accusing me of cramming a dead moose up my ass. I didn’t respond, hoping that he’d get back on track once our fellow patrons stopped staring at us.
“Yeah, I was a real ass-kicker in my day,” he continued. “And what did that motherfuck Reagan ever do? Wasn’t he some kind of actor or something? They should put his sorry ass on the three dollar bill, if you take my meaning.”
Another loud belch. Another long draw from the bottle. A lengthy diatribe on the subject of anal sex. And so it went.
So farewell to you Ronald Wilson Reagan, wherever you are. I just hope my eternal tribute to you will never have to be a well-worn phrase: “Actually, could I have two fives back rather than a ten? Thanks.”
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