President’s State of Union

President Reagan’s State of the Union speech goes to prove the old adage, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Again, he brushed aside planned cutbacks in health, education, and drug enforcement, skipped homelessness and arms control, and gave us honey-dripped patriotism and silver clouds.

While acknowledging that we have a huge trade deficit and national debt problem, he gave us not a hint that his Administration had created these problems. And, he gave us not a hint about any real solutions. He hopped nimbly over his Iran-arms-hostage debacle, asking us for trust in our government. But while taking responsibility for the failure of his policy, he refused to admit that it was the secret policy itself that was flawed and foolish.

We will survive Ronald Reagan’s incompetence, as we survived Richard Nixon’s obsession with power, if we insist that deeds are what count, not Hollywood fantasy-fabricated scripts, even when eloquently spoken.

GARO GAZURIAN

Culver City