Ronald Reagan and 'The Slur'

A debate is erupting at the New York Times.

Columnist David Brooks wrote a column last week that ran in Friday's edition. The headline was History and Calumny.

You can read it here.

In today's edition, the Times published some of the readers' responses. You can read them here.

If you don't have the time to read both, I'll try to give you the condensed version.

Brooks was referring to a campaign appearance by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan went to Philadelphia, Miss., which was where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. In a speech Reagan gave, the soon-to-be-elected president proclaimed, "I believe in states' rights."

Since that time, the assertion has been that Reagan used the phrase "states' rights" with the knowledge that it was code language intended to mollify the Ku Klux Klan elements in the electorate, particularly in Southern states like Mississippi. Brooks' column alleges that anyone who continues to claim that Reagan made an appeal to racism in his speech -- or in his 1980 campaign in general -- is perpetuating a "slur" against him.

The readers whose comments were published today responded in the manner in which I would have hoped they would respond. They refused to stick their heads in the sand, as Brooks appears to have done, and deny that racism played any part in Reagan's speech or campaign.

As one reader wrote, "However sincere Mr. Reagan may have been ... there can be no doubt that 'states’ rights' is a racist doctrine, and one that the GOP continues to embrace. With all the major GOP presidential hopefuls clinging both to Ronald Reagan’s legacy and the old Southern strategy of Richard M. Nixon, the issue is as real and cogent today" as it was 27 years ago when Reagan went to Philadelphia, Miss.

I was in college when Reagan made his visit to Mississippi and, for one who is old enough to remember the event, this comment from a Times reader is perhaps the most relevant to the reality: "It wasn’t Ronald Reagan’s going to Philadelphia, Miss., that exposed the Republican racism, nor was it his speaking of states’ rights. It was doing the two things together that made the symbolism clear."

Amen.

And, if I had the chance to speak directly to David Brooks, I would have this to say: We have plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who want to rewrite all sorts of historical events to suit their own agendas. There is no need to add to their number.

If Ronald Reagan wanted or needed to clarify his remarks from that day in 1980, he had a long time in which to do so, including the eight years he spent in the White House. He also had several post-presidential years before Alzheimer's began to rob him of his mind and his personality.

He did not choose to revise his remarks.

And I feel justifiably suspicious of anyone who seeks to do so nearly three decades after the fact.