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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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Oakes:

I wasn't even sure we were. But I don't mind saying that because I think the Reagan era was one of the really low points in American history, certainly in 20th Century history. I think the Reagan era, because -- if you want me to go on about this --

Q:

Please.

Oakes:

I think what Reagan, for all his superficial charm, really represented was an almost total inversion of what I would consider the right principles of government and of national polity. I think Reagan represented a totally superficial approach to American political and public life. He was a representative of “anything goes if you succeed” philosophy. I think he represented sort of the apotheosis of the “get happy by getting rich” -- that kind of approach. I think Reagan was an extremely bad influence on American public life, really. So it just still makes me sick when I see all the adulation that is heaped on Reagan. Just to put it on practical grounds, Reagan, of course, was responsible for the huge increase, the enormous increase in the national debt. He was, in my view, totally oblivious to and perhaps didn't even understand what he was doing as far as promoting the get-rich-quick, devil-take-the-hindmost philosophy of government.

So that may sound a little extreme, but I have to say that I really feel that Reagan was, in any evaluation of presidents, the worst and most harmful, really harmful, president of the twentieth Century. You had people who were probably actual crooks, or, at least, certainly moral crooks -- cheesy politicians like Warren Harding -- who, of course, is the number one so-called bad president of the twentieth Century, saved from an even worse fate by an untimely death -- but I think Harding was small-time stuff. I really think that, partly because of his winning personality and friendly smile that captured the public, I would





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