Reagan and Alzheimer's

MANIFESTO

I think it's pretty much acknowledged by most Americans that our fortieth president suffered from Alzheimer's disease while he was in office—not that many would actually admit to that belief. His utter cluelessness during the Iran-Contra Affair and his incredibly inept performances at press conferences and presidential debates certainly gave me no doubt that the wires weren't always connected. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Alzheimer's diagnosis wasn't widely known in those days, and so whisperings of "senility" and like diagnoses were made.

Now, it turns out that Reagan almost certainly suffered from the syndrome.

[I]n 1989, doctors operating on Reagan expressed their belief he was suffering from the degenerative disease.

Ron Reagan writes that in July 1989, his father was thrown off a horse while visiting friends in Mexico. He received medical attention at a hospital in San Diego. When surgeons opened the president’s skull to relieve pressure they "detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer’s disease." But no formal diagnosis was given.

By the time of that '89 accident, Reagan had been out of office for six months. But if his brain was showing evidence of the disease then, it seems logical that the disease actually would have started years earlier, back when he was in the White House.

I suppose it's too late to say "I told you so," but this is more grist for us who never thought much of the ketchup-is-a-vegetable chief executive.

And yet, the poor demented man is still looked upon as a paragon by too many 21st century politicians.

UPDATE — Steve Benen has more.