Reagan's Speech

As posted below, David Brooks recently wrote that Reagan's speech at the Fair, despite the conventional wisdom of the liberal press, was not a states' rights focused speech that stood in opposition to civil rights. He used a recently discovered recording of the speech hosted on the Neshoba Democrat's web site to back up his claims.

Columnist Bob Herbert disagreed with Brooks and continued the debate.

Joseph Crespino of Macon, Mississippi and author of "In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution" also disagrees with Brooks.

The New Republic, predictibly, comes down against Brooks, "If you go to Mississippi and use the same words used by every redneck desirous of pulling an ever-so-thin cloak over his bigotry, you're either stupid or you're courting the bigots. In 1980 Reagan could not yet benefit from the defense of stupidity or dementia: He was courting the bigots. Just as, when he declined the Klan's endorsement, he was not acting stupid, either: He couldn't be seen as the candidate only of bigots....Brooks and Krugman appear to think this is a story about Reagan's legacy. But it is bigger, and simpler. For a generation the Republicans have benefited from keeping Mississippi burning, just as the Democrats did before. Both hoped that racist populism would trump economic populism. The coming year will likely bring more of the same, and the results will tell us whether Americans will be so simply fooled again."

Clay Waters at NewsBusters.org supports Brooks saying, "Times columnist David Brooks blew a hole into the left-wing myth of Ronald Reagan appealing to Southern racists to kick off his 1980 presidential campaign. What makes Brooks's Friday column doubly valuable -- it's a bank-shot sinking of fellow Times columnist and Republican-hater Paul Krugman. Brooks's "History and Calumny" defends then-candidate Ronald Reagan from leftists like Krugman who have long slurred his 1980 campaign kick-off in Philadelphia, Miss. as a racist appeal....(full article here).

Nicholas Wapshott, author of "Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage," leaves the judgment on Neshoba up to the reader of his recent column, but articulates a strong defense of Reagan personally on race.

The Neshoba Democrat has published a transcript of Reagan's Neshoba County Fair speech, so you can read it yourself.