From the story, "CBS almost reported Reagan was mentally unfit in 1986," at http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/20/cbs-reported-reagan-mentally-unfit-1986/:
"Reagan didn't seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he's gonzo, I thought. I have to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet."
When was Ronald Reagan diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease? A quote from an article by Christopher Lane, PhD, in Psychology Today, titled "When Did Reagan's First Signs of Alzheimer's Appear?."
More:
"Other observers and commentators have noted how often Reagan confused films he'd made with political reality, including telling witnesses about concentration camps he'd helped to liberate in World War II, when the humbler truth was rather that he had made a movie or two about the topic.
"Then there's the incident at a photoshoot at the president's beloved ranch in Santa Barbara, also in 1984, when a reporter called out a question about arms control and received this response from the leader of the free world:
R.R: "Well, we uh, well... I guess, uh, well, we uh ...""These and many other troubling moments stand in marked contrast to the president many would prefer to remember for declaring ebulliently..., 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'
Nancy Reagan: (sotto voce): "We're doing the best we can."
R.R.: (with a big smile): "We're doing the best we can!"
"While Alzheimer's is a feared and debilitating disease, even as we celebrate recent developments in its early detection it's critical to ask whether the president of the United States was mentally impaired toward the end of his term in office. The implications of that inquiry extend far beyond a family feud. They spotlight the many other, far-less attractive policy decisions, both at home and abroad, that Reagan authorized and initiated."
And in another post at CBS News by Peter Maer, "When Did Ronald Reagan Have Alzheimer's? The Debate Goes On," the debate is apparently over and the decision is in:
"When did the Alzheimer's disease start? The debate has provoked the latest Reagan family feud. In his new book 'My Father at 100,' Ron Reagan contends his father showed signs of Alzheimer's Disease three years into his first term. He said he noticed it in the president's performance in the Oct.7, 1984, campaign debate with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale.
"He writes, 'My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered.'
"Knowing what we know now, about the nature of Alzheimer's disease, we know that, decades before symptoms begin arriving, changes are happening in the brain," Ron Reagan adds."
Even a Conservative sheeplet, self-described as born in the sixties said in a blog post while trying to cover up the truth about the enfeebled President, even though Alzheimer's is classified as a mental disorder - meaning that a President of the United States was incapacitated at the time, and that George H.W. Bush should have been sworn into office:
"...(O)ne of the most vivid political memories of my youth (at the age of 17) was watching in utter embarrassment as my hero was unable to come close to completing his closing statement in one of the two national televised debates in 1984. I can remember being mortified as Reagan started to describe driving down the California coast and then seemingly got lost only to be embarrassingly pulled over to the side of the road by the moderator Edwin Newman, who sheepishly had to take the keys out of the old man’s hands."
Back to the CBS article:
"Over the years, White House reporters often wondered about Reagan's alertness, especially toward the end of his second term. At times, he paused and appeared to look into the distance as he formulated answers to questions or responded to situations. Journalists were unsure whether it was part of his hearing impairment or something else. When asked a question that he could not or would not answer, Reagan would sometimes say, 'they [his staff] haven't told me what I'm doing yet.'
"At a photo-op, reporters asked about the perceived the lack of progress on arms control talks with the Soviet Union. As the president pondered the query, Nancy Reagan whispered, 'Doing the best we can.' Taking the cue, Ronald Reagan repeated, 'We're doing the best we can.'
"Reagan also once mistook his housing secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr. for a city mayor. 'Hello Mr. Mayor,' he said to the only cabinet secretary to serve through both Reagan terms.
"Several years after Reagan left office, I asked a former White House staffer who frequently saw the president if he (Reagan) always recognized him. The man said, 'He knew my face and he knew my name but not always at the same time.'
"Physicians diagnosed Reagan with Alzheimer's approximately five years after he left office but the date of the onset will likely be pondered by political historians and medical experts for years to come."
In a New York Times article by Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. , "Reagan Memoir Raises the Difficulty of Confirming Alzheimer's," Altman quotes Ronnie Reagan as saying, "...that the amyloid plaque characteristic of Alzheimer’s can start forming years before it leads to dementia. The former president’s diagnosis was made in 1993, four years after he left office.
“'Given what we know about the disease,' his son told me, 'I don’t know how you could say that the disease wasn’t likely present in him during the presidency.' The article continues:
“'Given what we know about the disease,' his son told me, 'I don’t know how you could say that the disease wasn’t likely present in him during the presidency.' The article continues:
"The disease occurs most frequently after 70, but it can strike younger people. Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist, diagnosed the first case in a 51-year-old woman. It is now recognized as one of a number of types of dementia. And diagnosing it with certainty requires a brain biopsy, rarely done while a patient is still alive.
"Mr. Reagan’s mental state was an issue even before he became the oldest man elected president, at 69, in 1980. Adversaries were fond of attributing his penchant for contradictory statements, forgetting names and general absent-mindedness to Alzheimer’s.
"I reported on Mr. Reagan’s health, and he told me that his mother, Nelle, had died of senility — and that if he were to develop it in office he would resign."
And again from the Times article, and the President's son:
"The disease’s course undulated as it progressed. Speech impairment, or aphasia, was an early cognitive deficit. 'It became very difficult for him to string sentences together and eventually just words together,' the son said.
"Soon after the diagnosis, Mr. Reagan was told to give up horseback riding, one of his favorite hobbies. A strong swimmer in his youth — credited with 77 rescues as a lifeguard in Illinois — he now had to wear water wings while a nurse and security agent propped him up in the shallow end of a pool at home. He picked up magnolia leaves that fell from an overhanging tree or that a security agent tossed his way.
"As the fog of Alzheimer’s thickened, the father no longer recognized the son."
While apologists have scurried to make sure the public is unaware that the President, the leader of the Free World, was mentally impaired, we see that he was observed as faltering by one of his doctors:
"On Sept. 13, 1992, Mr. Reagan made a campaign speech for President George Bush in Yorba Linda, Calif. In suit and tie on that sweltering day, but speaking more slowly than in the past, Mr. Reagan drew thunderous cheers from the shirt-sleeved crowd.
"Dr. Lawrence C. Mohr, one of the White House doctors in Mr. Reagan's second term, was seeing him for the first time in six months, and afterward, the doctor and the former President talked. As usual, Mr. Reagan asked about Dr. Mohr's family. But Mr. Reagan 'was distant,' he said, and seemed 'preoccupied, which was unusual, because Ronald Reagan is a person who was engaged when he would talk to you.'
"At the end of the conversation, the doctor continued, ''Mr. Reagan asked me, 'What am I supposed to do next?' There was a blank look on his face.'' Dr. Mohr said he guided Mr. Reagan away and wondered 'what had caused the change and what was going to happen.'
"Now, looking back, Dr. Mohr regards that change as the first sure warning of Mr. Reagan's Alzheimer's."
For the rest of Reagan's deterioration after he left office, read "REAGAN'S TWILIGHT -- A special report.; A President Fades Into a World Apart," also a New York Times piece, at http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/05/us/reagan-s-twilight-a-special-report-a-president-fades-into-a-world-apart.html.
Had Conservatism been criminalized before 1980, or had the President's medical condition been made available to Americans, we never would have had to endure the criminal attacks by the Reagan Administration on the people's democracy in America...
NEXT: How Reagan Really Failed As President, showing how the Sheeplet's hero was America's shame, elected twice by an uninformed, fooled, and foolish electorate.
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more places you'll go.”
Dr. Seuss
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