Reaganmania continues its march across the nation – Williamson Co. commissioners this week rechristened the under-construction Parmer Lane extension Ronald Reagan Boulevard. But things got a little bit out of hand this week as the UT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas “announced its disgust” and demanded an apology from Dean Edwin Dorn of the LBJ School of Public Affairs for mockery of the Best President Ever! on the school’s e-mail list.
In a press release, current YCT President Lauren Conner – listed in the UT directory as a junior in the business school, and thus likely not yet born when Reagan was first elected – chastised Dorn and LBJ professor (and former Austin councilman) Bill Spelman for showing “juvenile and partisan disrespect” for “the man who was a champion of public affairs” and who brought “hope and optimism to the fallen spirit of the American people,” whose loss was mourned by “the whole world.“
The objectionable e-mail traffic started with less-than-reverent – though hardly “disgusting” – comparisons of the Most Holy President to Ray Charles, and apparently went downhill from there, though the “nonpartisan” YCTs offered no examples.
This article appears in June 25 • 2004.