| The modern equivalent of the king/commoner exchange is the transposition between an actor and a politician. Kings can become commoners and vice versa, but usually not for as long as actors have found it possible to impersonate politicians. No one has ever succeeded as brilliantly in achieving this transition as the 40th American President Ronald Reagan. Those who had watched his movie career sink into a premature sunset at Hollywood could not explain how later he managed to become such as successful Governor of California and a two-term President of the United States. Even the astute Henry Kissinger, from whom secrets rarely dared to conceal themselves, admitted defeat. Addressing a conference of historians at the Library of Congress in the final year of Reagan’s presidency, he conceded: “What you historians have to explain is how so unintellectual a man could have dominated California for eight years, and Washington for nearly seven.” |
| UNPUBLISHED. Printed in THE BARK OF A PEN (2001). |
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