From Sinner to Saint (Nancy)

[kskiska]

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Though old images are hard to shift, the metamorphosis of Nancy Reagan proves it can be done. Once, she was a shopaholic who spent $209,000 on a new dinner service and who, when asked what she thought of Red China, is supposed to have replied: 'Never on a yellow tablecloth.' Now everyone admires Nancy with a fervour not always extended to her husband.

As middle America traipsed past Ronald Reagan's coffin, obituarists wrangled over who, exactly, they were mourning: a President who taught America to dream again, a pragmatist who hastened the end of the Cold War, or a shambling second-rater who wooed the rich, sowed disdain for government and smoothed the political turf for George W Bush.

There is nothing equivocal about the sanctification of Nancy, the central figure at the state funeral she had choreographed to the last flutter of a Kleenex. Profilers presented almost as endearing foibles the stories of bad parenting, vanity, excess, control freakery, alleged pill-popping and the fact that she could never forgive Raisa Gorbachev for not looking like a hod-carrier.

Maybe Nancy did drive her chef into a frenzy with rehearsals for the banquet in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales. But perhaps she also detected in Ronnie's toast to 'Prince Charles and Princess Andrew' an early whisper of the dementia that she would have first to hide and then manage in her long role as keeper of the Reagan myth. The families of Alzheimer's sufferers warm to her and so do other ordinary voters. One of America's most reviled first ladies has become the face of caring America and a template for political spouses everywhere.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1237634,00.html