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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Paul Kengor
This February marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, with all sorts
of commemorations happening throughout the month. Having written a lot on
Reagan, I've been asked countless questions about the man. Lately, some of
those questions dovetail with some intriguing questions regarding the
current president, Barack Obama, particularly those raised here at American
Thinker by Selwyn Duke. Before considering Duke's analysis, I'll explain on
Reagan.
Over the last few months, I've fielded questions over my provocative
inclusion of Ronald Reagan as one of the dupes in my latest book.
Conservatives and liberals alike have been taken aback. In truth, this is
easy to explain: Reagan, as a young liberal actor in Hollywood, notably in a
brief timeframe from 1945-46, had been duped by several communist front-
groups that he innocently joined.
As Reagan later regretted, he had "blindly and busily" joined "every
organization I could find that would guarantee to save the world." He was "
an active (though unconscious) partisan in what now and then turned out to
be communist causes." The duped Reagan saw the folks at these organizations
as "liberals, and being liberals ourselves, [we] bedded down with them."
Reagan learned that the Reds were not under the bed, but in the bed. "By
reason of deception," he had not been "sharp about communism."
Of course, the rest of the story is critical, and gripping and redeeming:
Reagan wasn't a dupe for long. He learned. Actually, he really, really
learned. By October 1947, Reagan was testifying on communist infiltration in
Hollywood as a friendly witness to the House Committee on Un-American
Activities. His statement was rightly hailed as "magnificent." One observer
called Reagan "the hero" of the hearings.
Later still, fellow actor Sterling Hayden, who had once joined the Communist
Party, recalled confronting Reagan at a meeting and getting demolished. As
Hayden put it, the anti-communist Reagan coolly "showed up and took over and
ground me into a pulp."
In short, Reagan became a tour de force, extremely effective in taking down
communists in Hollywood, decades before he took them down in Moscow.
Here's the key point for this article: Ronald Reagan, onetime dupe, became
the best anti-dupe, transforming from deceived Democrat to conservative
Republican, from progressive sucker to crusading Cold Warrior. The Reagan
narrative is a wonderful conversion story.
That brings me to Selwyn Duke's piece at American Thinker. Duke responded to
an article I wrote for American Thinker, titled, "Obama's Missing Link,"
based on an interview I did with Dr. John Drew, a former Marxist who knew
Barack Obama at Occidental College, and knew Obama as a fellow Marxist. Drew
's testimony is extremely compelling; it cannot be ignored by anyone trying
to piece together Obama's still-mysterious, elusive political past.
Of course, Drew's account ultimately leads to the central question: How much
does this matter now? Where does Obama currently stand ideologically? Is he
still influenced by remnants of a Marxist worldview? If so, to what degree?
Where, precisely, does he fall on that left-side of the political spectrum?
Most important, if Obama has changed, when and where and why and how did he
change? And where's the documented account of that change?
Alas, that's where Selwyn Duke's analysis was so spot-on. In his piece, "The
Missing Link in the Evolution of Barack Obama," Duke followed up with this
brilliant line of thinking on Obama:
Now, some may say that a person can change markedly over a thirty-year
period. This is true. Yet not only do we have the recent evidence of Obama's
radical communist appointments, but there's something else as well. It hit
me just the other night. ...
[A] transition from flat-out "Marxist-Leninist" to someone who rejects
the red menace is a pretty big change, don't you think? In fact, wouldn't
such a personal evolution -- some might say revolution -- be a kind of
conversion? I think so.
Now, many people do experience conversions. I think here of erstwhile
radical-leftist David Horowitz; ex-liberals Michael Savage and Robin of
Berkeley; and President George W. Bush, who accepted Christ as an adult.
And then there's me: I was never a liberal, but I did transition from being
a scoffer at religion and an agnostic to a devout Catholic.
There's an interesting thing, however, about conversions.
You hear about them.
You see, a conversion is a sea change, a rebirth, a turning point in
your existence. ... And those around you will know about it.
As for this writer, everyone who knows me would say that my religious
conversion was a seminal point in my life. Horowitz has spoken of his
rejection of the "loony left," Bush's conversion is well known, Savage has
talked about his on the radio, and Robin of Berkeley can't stop talking
about hers. A conversion becomes part of your life narrative.
Now consider something. Barack Obama is one of the most famous, most
discussed individuals on the planet.
But we have not heard about any soul-changing conversion in his life.
Not a whisper.
Nothing.
Nothing that could reconcile the flat-out Marxist-Leninist Obama was in
his college days with the man he supposedly is today. There's no one who
says, "Yeah, he was a radical guy in his youth, and I just couldn't believe
how he became disenchanted with his old ideas." There are no stories about a
great epiphany, an overseas trip that opened his eyes, or a personal
tragedy that inspired growth. There's nothing to explain how a radical
Marxist became a reasonable politician. And if there is such an explanation,
it's the most elusive of missing links.
Selwyn Duke is exactly right. Where's the conversion narrative for Barack
Obama?
When Duke wrote that piece, it got me thinking as well. And as I've
repeatedly retold Ronald Reagan's conversion narrative recently, the
contrast has sunk in even more.
And now, especially after Obama's State of the Union, the half-way point of
his presidency, and with the media focusing on the Reagan centennial, we're
hearing all kinds of comparisons between Obama and Reagan, including a silly
cover photo by Time magazine. Even Obama himself is having the thoughts,
reading a biography of Reagan and authoring an op-ed on Reagan in USA Today.
And yet, of all these contrasts, the single most telling is the lack of a
conversion narrative for Obama, unlike Reagan. The young Reagan transformed
from duped liberal, duped by communists, to the man who undermined the Evil
Empire. Reagan did a "180," a transformation he discussed at length,
including in memoirs published two decades before his presidency.
Obama, however, has never left the left. More than that, if he really was on
the Marxist-Leninist left, as John Drew describes, we have no accounting,
from Obama or anyone, of a switch. In Obama's memoirs -- he's already done
two of them -- we hear about him attending socialist conferences and "
hanging out" with Marxist professors, but we never get any repudiation of
those conferences, professors, or even a tiny, passing comment suggesting
these were fanciful political musings from a misguided youth.
We have the Reagan conversion narrative. Where's Obama's? And could someone
in the media, with access to Obama, please ask the question?
Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His
books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, God and
Ronald Reagan, and the newly released Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have
Manipulated Progressives for a Century. |
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