Former first lady Nancy Reagan dies at 94 in California
Nancy Reagan, the helpmate, backstage adviser and fierce protector of Ronald Reagan in his journey from actor to president — and finally during his 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease — has died. She was 94. The former first lady died Sunday at her home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles of congestive heart failure, assistant Allison Borio told The Associated Press. Her best-known project as first lady was the “Just Say No” campaign to help kids and teens stay off drugs. When she swept into the White House in 1981, the former Hollywood actress partial to designer gowns and pricey china was widely dismissed as a pre-feminist throwback, concerned only with fashion, decorating and entertaining. By the time she moved out eight years later, Mrs. Reagan was fending off accusations that she was a behind-the-scenes “dragon lady” wielding unchecked power over the Reagan administration — and doing it based on astrology to boot. All along she maintained that her only mission was to back her “Ronnie” and strengthen his presidency. Mrs. Reagan carried that charge through the rest of her days. She served as a full-time caretaker as Alzheimer’s melted away her husband’s memory. After his death in June 2004 she dedicated herself to tending his legacy, especially at his presidential library in California, where he had served as governor. She also championed Alzheimer’s patients, raising millions of dollars for research and breaking with fellow conservative Republicans to advocate for stem cell studies. Her dignity and perseverance in these post-White House roles helped smooth over the public’s fickle perceptions of the former first lady. The Reagans’ mutual devotion over 52 years of marriage was legendary. They were forever holding hands. She watched his political speeches with a look of such steady adoration it was dubbed “the gaze.” He called her “Mommy,” and penned a lifetime of gushing love notes. She saved these letters, published them as a book, and found them a comfort when he could no longer remember her. In announcing his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 1994, Reagan wrote, “I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience.” Ten years later, as his body lay in state in the U.S. Capitol, Mrs. Reagan caressed and gently kissed the flag-draped casket. As the newly arrived first lady, Mrs. Reagan raised more than $800,000 from private donors to redo the White House family quarters and to buy a $200,000 set of china bordered in red, her signature color. She was criticized for financing these pet projects with donations from millionaires who might seek influence with the government, and for accepting gifts and loans of dresses worth thousands of dollars from top designers. Her lavish lifestyle — in the midst of a recession and with her husband’s administration cutting spending on the needy — inspired the mocking moniker “Queen Nancy.” But her admirers credited Mrs. Reagan with restoring grace and elegance to the White House after the austerity of the Carter years. Her substantial influence within the White House came to light slowly in her husband’s second term. Although a feud between the first lady and chief of staff Donald Regan had spilled into the open, the president dismissed reports that it was his wife who got Regan fired. “The idea that she is involved in governmental decisions and so forth and all of this, and being a kind of dragon lady — there is nothing to that,” a visibly angry Reagan assured reporters. But Mrs. Reagan herself and other insiders later confirmed her role in rounding up support for Regan’s ouster and persuading the president that it had to be done, because of the Iran-Contra scandal that broke under Regan’s watch. She delved into policy issues, too. She urged Reagan to finally break his long silence on the AIDS crisis. She nudged him to publicly accept responsibility for the arms-for-hostages scandal. And she worked to buttress those advisers urging him to thaw U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, over the objections of the administration’s “evil empire” hawks. Near the end of Reagan’s presidency, ex-chief of staff Regan took his revenge with a memoir revealing that the first lady routinely consulted a San Francisco astrologer to guide the president’s schedule. Mrs. Reagan, who had a longtime interest in horoscopes, maintained that she used the astrologer’s forecasts only in hopes of predicting the safest times for her husband to venture out of the White House after an assassination attempt by John Hinckley just three months into Reagan’s presidency. Anne Frances Robbins, nicknamed Nancy, was born on July 6, 1921, in New York City. Her parents separated soon after she was born and her mother, film and stage actress Edith Luckett, went on the road. Nancy was reared by an aunt until 1929, when her mother married Dr. Loyal Davis, a wealthy Chicago neurosurgeon who gave Nancy his name and a socialite’s home. She majored in drama at Smith College and found stage work with the help of her mother’s connections. In 1949, MGM signed 5-foot-4, doe-eyed brunette Nancy Davis to a movie contract. She was cast mostly as a loyal housewife and mother. She had a key role in “The Next Voice You Hear …,” an unusual drama about a family that hears God’s voice on the radio. In “Donovan’s Brain,” she played the wife of a scientist possessed by disembodied gray matter. She met Ronald Reagan in 1950, when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild and she was seeking help with a problem: Her name had been wrongly included on a published list of suspected communist sympathizers. They discussed it over dinner, and she later wrote that she realized on that first blind date “he was everything that I wanted.” They wed two years later, on March 4, 1952. Daughter Patti was born in October of that year and son Ron followed in 1958. Reagan already had a daughter, Maureen, and an adopted son, Michael, from his marriage to actress Jane Wyman. (Later,
Seeds of GOP splinter in opposition to all things Barack Obama
Republicans can blame their united stand against President Barack Obama for their party’s splintering. Conservatives’ gut-level resistance to all things Obama — the man, his authority, his policies — gave birth to the tea party movement that powered the GOP to political success in multiple states and historic congressional majorities. Yet contained in the movement and its triumphs were the seeds of destruction, evident now in the party’s fracture over presidential front-runner Donald Trump. Obama’s policies, from the ambitious 2010 law overhauling the health care system to moving unilaterally on immigration, roiled conservatives who decried his activist agenda and argued about constitutional overreach. “Quasi-socialist,” says Tea Party Express. Republicans rode that anger to majority control of the House in 2010 and an eye-popping net gain of 63 seats as voters elected tea partyers and political outsiders. Four years later, the GOP claimed the Senate, too. For all the numbers, though, Republicans were unable to roll back Obama administration policies or defeat the Democratic president in 2012, further infuriating the GOP base. Now the party of Abraham Lincoln is engaged in a civil war, pitting establishment Republicans frightened about a election rout in November against the unpredictable Trump, who has capitalized on voter animosity toward Washington and politicians. “There would be no Donald Trump without Barack Obama,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. No fan of Trump, Graham argued that resentment of Obama plus his own party’s attitude toward immigrants are responsible for the deep divide and the billionaire businessman’s surge. Mainstream Republicans are hard-pressed to figure out a way forward with Trump, who has pledged to build a wall on the Mexican border, bar Muslims from entering the United States and equivocated over former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke‘s support. The candidate has assembled a growing coalition of blue-collar workers, high-school educated and those craving a no-nonsense candidate. “I think they are at a loss to try to reconcile this nihilist wing of the Republican Party with conservative principles,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. The health care fight proves illustrative. The disaffected Americans embracing Trump echo the angry voices that filled town halls in the summer of 2009 as fearful voters taunted lawmakers over efforts to overhaul health care. Obama and Democrats were undaunted, pushing ahead on a remake of the system despite unified Republican opposition. In January 2010, thanks to tea party backing and conservative outrage, Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts, claiming the seat that liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy had held for 47 years. That sent people a message that “if you could win in blue Massachusetts, we could win in my state,” said Sal Russo, co-founder and chief strategist of Tea Party Express. “That changed the movement from a protest movement to a political movement.” Three months later, in March 2010, Democrats rammed Obama’s health reform through Congress as mobs of protesters chanted outside the Capitol. Not a single Republican backed it. “Completely partisan,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. That November, the tea party propelled Republicans shouting repeal health care to victory, among them Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky. They defeated establishment GOP candidates more likely to compromise in Washington. Dozens of other tea party candidates captured House seats; many were making their first foray in politics. Losers in 2010 were some of the moderate and conservative Democrats who had backed the health care law. Along with Obama’s re-election in 2012 came another group of congressional tea partyers, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The movement’s strength ran headlong into Washington reality: Obama was president and Democrats still controlled the Senate. Efforts by Cruz and House conservatives to torpedo the health care law led to a partial, 16-day government shutdown in 2013. Republicans triumphed a year later, capturing control of the Senate and knocking out some of the more moderate Democrats such as Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and Arkansas’ Mark Pryor. In the House last year, they toppled House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a victim of his pragmatism. Expectations among uncompromising conservatives were sky-high. So was the disappointment. Obama’s health care plan remained the law of the land. “It definitely led to a wave in 2010 that gave us the majority, and then, what have we done since then,” said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. “That’s our responsibility to show what we have done since then, in spite of this president.” Trump has tapped into voter frustration even though he’s not considered tea party. At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, made clear that their man was Cruz. Still, Republicans recognize the power of his candidacy and the ramifications. “The American people are fed up,” said Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., one of a handful of Trump backers in Congress, “and if elected officials don’t realize it, we’ll be out of jobs.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers: Anniston Star – An Alabama court that can’t stop itself The events Friday at the Alabama Supreme Court illustrate the twists and turns that legal opponents of same-sex marriage too often make. First, though, a reminder: This is the court that stopped same-sex marriages in Alabama last year. And the court led by Chief Justice Roy Moore, who has urged county probate judges to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples. So Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled appropriately by dismissing motions and petitions in a lawsuit that would stop gay marriage in Alabama. Given the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of last summer, it was the Alabama court’s smart and obvious play. But our state Supreme Court is overwhelmingly conservative, Republican and anti-gay marriage. So, instead of issuing its ruling Friday with an appropriate response, the court filed 170 pages of opinion that said (a.) the motions and petitions were denied and (b.) the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which removed bans on same-sex unions throughout the United States, remained a blight on our nation. Birmingham News – Our national security depends on energy independence After decades of effort, American energy independence is finally within our reach. But President Obama is doing everything he can to make sure we remain dependent on foreign oil and gas. Thanks to an increase in domestic production, especially here in Alabama, foreign energy imports have declined dramatically in recent years. This reduction has helped increase U.S. energy security for three straight years, according to a new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Yet the Obama administration just imposed rules limiting domestic energy development on federal lands. And in February, the president called for a new tax on oil. Already, the oil and natural gas industry faces an uphill battle to maintain these security gains in a market awash with cheap energy. The White House’s plans jeopardize America’s progress towards energy independence — and hurt Alabama’s economy in the process. The Chamber’s report evaluates energy security by assessing 37 different metrics. These range from oil price volatility to energy efficiency to the amount of money spent on energy-related research and development. After pooling all this data, the Chamber comes up with a figure called the “Energy Security Risk Index.” The lower the number, the safer the United States. Decatur Daily – Americans now must show wisdom The establishment is a hated and feared entity in America. While different people define it in different ways, most Americans conceive of “the establishment” as a political structure that deprives the people of their ability to control their own government. Their fear is not irrational. Corporate interests, both acknowledged and anonymous, pour billions of dollars into the U.S. political system each election cycle. They have immense control over the actions of successful candidates. Maybe more pernicious is the control they exert through the parties in limiting the choice of candidates. The result has been a deep cynicism among the American people. Those who are most in need of a candidate who can effect change are also those who are convinced that their voice no longer matters. Like a boxer who punches a brick wall to test his strength, Americans simultaneously are demonstrating their influence and damaging themselves. The news from Super Tuesday was both good and bad. Good because the people proved corporate interests have not completely corrupted the system. The establishment did not win Tuesday. Dothan Eagle – Ballot mystery muddies DA’s race When voters in the Republican primary in Henry and Houston counties looked to their ballots to select a new district attorney on Tuesday, they found four names from which to choose: Patrick Jones, Gary Maxwell, Will Matthews, and Arthur Medley. However, only Jones, Maxwell, and Medley were candidates; Matthews qualified to run on Nov. 5, but soon changed his mind; on Nov. 23, he announced he was dropping out of the race, more than three months before the March 1 primary. Before the primary, election officials suggested the presence of Matthews’ name on the ballot was irrelevant, that any votes he drew in the election wouldn’t count. As the dust settles, it seems that’s not exactly true. It’s likely that the 1,061 voters who cast a ballot for Matthews would have voted for one of the other three had his name not appeared. And that could have altered the outcome of the contest. There was no clear winner in Tuesday’s race. Jones led opponents by a long shot, but even with 8,233 votes – 37.4 percent — didn’t cross the threshold of victory. Even if he had pulled all the votes that went to Matthews, Jones would still face one of the others in a runoff, and that’s where the “what ifs” really begin. Enterprise Ledger – Train ride to Elba, now that was cool We were discussing “cool” a week ago but didn’t even mention what prompted the topic: a half-full bottle of English Leather aftershave lotion. Since “cool” descended on the House of Adams circa 1962, there’s been a bottle of English Leather in stock; the first bottle held cologne, not aftershave. Both varieties came from the store in wooden boxes from, we sorta believed, well, England. Long before aftershave replaced cologne, other Britishcoolities had come our way. Chief among them was James Bond, Ian Fleming’s creation, who brought to our attention how cool a dude could be wearing a trench coat, carrying a black umbrella and, presumably, leaving a trail of English Leather or British Sterling smell-goods as he moved hither and yon. It quickly came to our attention the fact any double-naught spy caught wearing any glorified raincoat not carrying the London Fog label was anything but cool. TimesDaily – Voters has shown their power, now it’s time to show wisdom The establishment is a hated and feared entity in America. While different people define it in different ways, most Americans conceive of “the establishment” as
