Did Reagan Already Have Alzheimer’s When He Was President? (Probably)

Bush at China Olympics

According to a new book by Ronald Reagan, Jr., “My Father at 100” President Reagan’s Alzheimer’s may have already been obvious during his presidency.  That’s something that those of us who didn’t like him much have often joked about.  It would explain why he thought he was actually involved in liberating Europe from the Nazis in real life – rather than just in his movie roles.  It would also explain his very convenient ignorance about selling weapons to the Iranians, which happened in dirty little secret deals even before his administration had begun.

The younger Reagan recalls how his father became uncharacteristically lost for words and looked “lost and bewildered” during the 1984 presidential debates with Democratic rival Walter Mondale. He says his father may have suspected the onset of Alzheimer’s in 1986 when he was flying over familiar canyons north of Los Angeles and became alarmed that he could no longer remember their names.

Whatever.  The 80s were like a million years ago, right?  I mean, it doesn’t matter any more than it matters that the USS Maine actually did blow up because of a defective boiler, the Lusitania really was carrying munitions just like the Germans said it was, or that the Gulf of Tonkin incident didn’t actually happen.  We know all of these things today 100% for sure, but those who said so at the time were labeled unpatriotic, anarchists, peaceniks and fucking hippies.

That’s right.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which Lyndon Johnson used to push the Gulf of Tonkin resolution through congress with fewer dissenting votes than there are on the fingers of one hand, was a complete fraud.  In 2005, the National Security Administration admitted that  “…it is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night.”

But the Viet Nam war had already been over for more than 30 years, so nobody cared.

Now, we find out that President Reagan had a leaky bucket for a brain, but nobody really cares.

How long will it be before we eventually find out that George Bush was drunk throughout his presidency, or that 9/11 was, in fact, an inside job?  My guess is that it will happen in about 2035.  And nobody will care.