William Shatner’s interpretation of “She Blinded Me With Science”:

This weekend I intend to finish The Ambition and The Power, about Jim Wright’s speakership in the late ’80s. Read it on a recommendation from the estimable Jonathan Bernstein, and it’s still quite readable even if most of the figures are no longer still around. The book is at its best when describing the Reagan Administration and Reagan himself–I’ve never quite bought the liberal cartoon of Reagan as a moronic, glassy-eyed presence in the presidency, and needless to say I never bought into the right’s myth of the man either. And the whole Reagan/Tip O’Neill compromising celebration from the centrists, well, that seemed a bit incomplete as well (turns out that O’Neill generally didn’t fight Reagan on what he wanted, while Wright did). This book lays out a very plausible portrait of Reagan as someone who is palpably tired of all this shit, but is completely stubborn and ideological, willful and not really all that trustworthy, constantly playing power games and working along different tracks at the same time to accomplish his goals. Machiavellian but not terribly clever. You can sort of see why his Administration had the sorts of scandal troubles it did, given the stubbornness, impatience, and raw power exercises that Reagan displays in the book. Though, in all fairness, I doubt that any of this is unique to him, or uncommon among presidents. It’s also definitely interesting to read stories about Reagan’s being ignored in his pleas to Senate Republicans, considering how he’s perceived by the GOP today, but it makes sense: by that time Reagan was a lame duck, and those guys had their own troubles to worry about. Definitely an interesting read for people interested in politics (i.e. anyone reading this).