Rambo Joke
Our fun-loving, wisecracking President is at it again.
After seeing “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” Ronald Reagan says he now knows how he’ll deal with the next hostage crisis (Times, July 1). Shades of his dimwitted joke about bombing Russia!
This compulsive urge to get a laugh at any cost blinds Reagan to the fact that the problems in the world today are no laughing matter. A Johnny Carson in the Oval Office we don’t need.
This foolish habit of making light of serious situations also betrays an ominous mind-set that’s disconcertingly inappropriate to the presidency.
While the President’s functionaries stumble around trying to concoct some sort of consistent policy and coherent strategy for the vexations plaguing our country on all fronts, Reagan sits on his keister mesmerized by the Panavision fantasy of a gun-toting, muscle-bound cretin.
When his supporters handed him a second four-year lease on the White House, Reagan declared, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!” How right he was. And chances are that between now and 1988 we never will, except more of his blustery buffoonery.
ED MITCHELL
Los Angeles
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