New Reagan documentary unveils ugly reality

[JHB]

34. In 1980 I was still a little short of voting age...

I grew up in a conservative household (of the Bill Buckley fan variety), but that influence always ran up against my sense of fairness. And one of my first political epiphanies was that was that communists weren't the big threat to this country, because too many people couldn't get on board with it. The real danger was the fanatical anti-communists, because they lumped everything they didn't like into "communism". They were the ones who really had the ability to bait-and-switch people, to get them supporting an agenda that was a lot more radical than they realized.

I contend that the past 40 years have proven my youthful insight correct.

Plus, I was a complete science nerd. Once he played footsie with creationists, he'd burned any "charm" he might have had with me.