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Reagan
on Mount Rushmore? Not Good Enough, I Say!
June
18, 2004
By Bucky Rea
Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore? The twenty dollar bill?
Not good enough, I say!
It demeans the greatness of the man to merely offer him
the slot on the twenty dollar bill. Ronald Reagan should be
on the hundred dollar bill and the fifty dollar bill to boot!
But not on anything smaller than the ten, because that's just
chump change.
And putting Reagan on Mount Rushmore? Well, that's a good
start, I suppose. But why just have him up there once? Sure
he's on a level with Jefferson and Washington and Lincoln.
But Teddy Roosevelt? TR was a Republican, but the man
was, frankly, soft on redeveloping the environment. And as
for all that "trust-busting" he did... well, let's
just say the Hero of San Juan Hill was no Alan Greenspan.
I tell you, Mount Rushmore would be far more dignified a
shrine to America's conquest of nature if we had two
Gippers carved up on that rock - and no tree-huggers whose
names rhyme with "Roosevelt."
But is that enough? I don't think so.
Lately Bill Frist says we ought to rename the Pentagon the
Ronald Reagan National Defense Building. At first blush this
seems like a good idea. No one better symbolizes America's
militaristic pride than Ronald Wilson Reagan - noble, shiny,
polished, high-tech-savvy, and perhaps a bit lacking in long-term
memory recall. But think about it in pragmatic terms. People
have always called that building the Pentagon and even if
we rename it, it'll still be shaped like a pentagon. People
will still want to call it the Pentagon. What an insult to
our Founding Gipper!
No, it's not enough to rename it. After all, we renamed
the Washington National Airport the Reagan National Airport
and yet people still insist on saying "I'm flying into Washington"
instead of the far more respectful "I'm flying into Ronald
Reagan." What we need to do is reshape the entire Defense
Department headquarters - Halliburton could probably handle
the reconstruction for a song, or two - and make the whole
thing look like a replica of Ronald Reagan's head. This would
honor the man in a fitting manner and also leave room for
the addition of new office space in the former Pentagon where
the pompadour poofs out.
But is that enough? I say, is that enough? Hardly.
Washington state should be renamed Reagan state. That would
honor the man who saved America - Washington state included.
Heck, when George Washington was around we didn't even own
the Pacific northwest. While we're at it, we better rename
Seattle "Ronald." Then we could say, "Bill Gates lives in
Ronald, Reagan" or "All the best coffee comes from Ronald,
Reagan." That sort of thing.
Of course this way you're only naming one of fifty states
after the man who helped the hostages get out of Iran when
they did. This is the guy who freed eastern Europe from Communism
and western Europe from Nazism and saw to it that so many
people in Central America quit suffering. He shaped our world,
our century, our very lives. We could rename Oregon after
him, too. Call it "O'Reagon." Or Illinois, the land of Reagan,
could be called "Reagan-nois." We could call the Potomac the
"Rontomac River." Connecticut? What about "Great Communicaticut"?
Or let's try "Gipperwood, Reagafornia."
Or better yet, let's redub this whole country "The United
States of Ronald Reagan." Anyone who watched television last
week can tell you that that would truly give a measure of
the importance of the man.
But is that enough? Seriously, is it enough?
Well, you know, I always thought the name "moon" could stand
a makeover...
Bucky Rea is a Texas high school teacher who stakes out
his World Wide Web turf at the Brown
Bag Blog.
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