Never Too Late

In Peter Biskind's book on Warren Beatty (which I'll post about some other day) he can't help but discuss the political scene, since Beatty, during certain periods, was heavily involved in Presidential campaigns.  Unfortunately, Biskind can't help but betray his unexamined beliefs.  He'll quickly sum up the situation based on, I'm guessing, what his social set felt, more than what the facts presented.

For example, in discussing the 1988 race, we get this on page 372:

After nearly two terms of Reaganomics that left staggering trade and budget deficits, high unemployment, and the so-called Reagan recession...

Let's ignore that you can give the President only so much credit or blame for the economy and look at these claims separately.  First, the trade deficit is a complex issue--we certainly had trade deficits in the Reagan years, but they'd started in the mid-70s.  We had big budget deficits, though, when adjusted for inflation, they peaked in 1983 and had dropped more than 40% by 1989. (Of course, who's responsible for the deficit is especially tricky, since Congress--run by Democrats in the 80s--controls spending, and recessions grow it no matter what you do.  But Biskind has no trouble making the call.)

As for unemployment, note Biskind claims two terms of Reagan "left" us with high numbers.  Well, during the Carter years the number shuttled, approximately, between 6% and 8%.  Reagan took office and it spiked, peaking above 10% in 1982, but spent the rest of his years going down.  By the time he left office it was at 5.4% and still declining.

And we were also left with the "so-called Reagan recession." So-called by whom?  Biskind's friends, I guess.  We went through a serious recession in the first half of Reagan's first term, and then had one of our longest periods of post-WWII expansion (followed by a mild recession and an even longer period of expansion).

(I realize Biskind might be trying to say we had big deficits when Reagan left office, and also we'd had high unemployment and a serious recession a few years back--if true, that would make Biskind a dishonest or incompetent writer, since he's dealing with how the country felt near the end of Reagan's two terms.)

One more example of Biskind's beliefs, a few pages later on 379, when Beatty's film Ishtar is flopping:

[Beatty] deplored, and rightly so, the growing obsession with box office, which began after Reagan was elected, when the patina of corporate America was buffed to a high gloss and money became the measure of all things.

Wow.  Reagan's elected so naturally people started to be interested in how much money movies made.

There's a general argument that America (and certainly Hollywood) has long cared about money, and the success or failure of popular entertainment.  But let's just look at the era involved.  Perhaps there was a growing interest (obsession, if you insist), but it hardly started during (much less because of) the Reagan years.  The modern phenomenon of reporting box office results grew considerably in the 70s, with papers reporting how each new blockbuster--The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975) and, above all, Star Wars (1977)--smashed records.

But there's nothing which Biskind's ilk can't lay at the feet of Reagan.  I guess it frees up their minds to think about other things.