The Power of Myth: As a shareholder in both America and the English language, I would like to offer up a partial list of terms that should be done away with immediately for the good of both, as these terms are misleading or offensive or just plain stupid: “bromance,” “Octomom,” “delicious” to describe anything other than food or drink, “boo” when not used to scare people, and “pimp” applied to anything other than personnel management in the hospitality industry.

One phrase that should also be thrown into a bag and drowned like a kitten is “the party of Lincoln and of Reagan,” that old saw that Republicans like to bandy about on TV but which is purely rank boondoggle. First of all, while it’s true that Lincoln was the first Republican president, that was in the 1860s, when the Republicans were the liberal party - centralized government (or “republic,” hence the name) sovereignty over state purview, and human rights for black people, remember? We fought a war over it? Although the current state of Lincoln nostalgia as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Obama administration may be a bit spurious, the notion that Abraham Lincoln and Dick Cheney play in the same sandbox is patently absurd.

Secondly, the breathless invocation of both names is an attempt to give the GOP the cachet of American folk heroes, of giants who once bestrode the earth, licking their weight in wildcats while calling for a repeal of the capital-gains tax. Ronald Reagan, more than any other Republican president of the last century (including Eisenhower), seemed to embody the stuff of myth, a plainspoken man of the West with Hollywood charisma but blue-collar sensibilities and the steely resolve to spit in the eye of America’s enemies. And subsequently, Reagan has been credited with legendary deeds of Paul Bunyan proportions: singlehandedly he saved the nation from economic malaise, restored America’s belief in its own greatness, and crushed the Soviets, ending the Cold War without firing a shot.

Trouble is, none of that actually happened. As journalist Will Bunch points out in his new book Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future (Simon & Schuster, 2009), over the 20 years since Reagan left office, historians and economists have come to the consensus that the economic recovery was due to global factors and economic cycling beyond Reagan’s control, and that the Soviet Union was ready to collapse from its rotten infrastructure and its people’s clamoring for Western-style consumerism. The lionization of Reagan, which began during his presidency but which expanded to colossal proportions after the man was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and rendered virtually critic-proof, hinges upon a set of milestones that have proven to be movie-set papier-mâché.

And why is this a problem? Two words and an initial: George W. Bush. The persona of Bush, a privileged son of old Connecticut money turned Texas good-ol’-boy, his political career and his policies while in office were a studied attempt at harnessing the Reagan myth. Unfortunately, the myth ignores certain details. While Reagan did slash taxes in 1981, he raised them every year for the next six. And while he did engage in hawkish posturing with America’s adversaries, he would have regarded the notion of starting a war, especially a “shock and awe” war that targeted civilians, as immoral and unthinkable, as his own diaries have shown. Reagan believed in diplomacy with the enemy and in force as a last resort, and while we frequently get the sound-bite “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” we never hear about the Reagan-Gorbachev arms-reduction pact, the most positive act of Reagan’s presidency and the one of which he was the most proud. Bush (more accurately, his handlers) adopted the highlight reel of the Reagan years - the contrived photo-ops, the defiance of Congress, “Bring it on” - but failed to consider that Reagan’s success was a combination of his personality and unbelievable timing, neither of which favored Bush. In other words, Bush was no Ronald Reagan, but then neither was Reagan himself.

Bunch’s book doesn’t take a hatchet to Reagan (in fact, I actually have a better opinion of Reagan now than I did before I read the book) as much as it seeks to deflate the myth and expose those who have sought to profit from it, especially Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and (not coincidentally) the Reagan Legacy Project, and the 2008 field of GOP candidates for president, all trying hard to fit into Reagan’s pants and failing. He also expresses some concerns for Barack Obama, who has already taken political cues from the Reagan playbook. Maybe the party of Lincoln and of Reagan will turn out to be the Democrats. Scary stuff. Boo.

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Get Out: Local author (and yet another reason to love this town like you would your own mother) Philip Lee Williams, author of All the Western Stars and The Heart of a Distant Forest, to name my favorites of his many books, will be appearing at Barnes & Noble on Thursday, Mar. 12 at 7 p.m. He’ll be signing copies of his new book Elegies for the Water: Poems (Mercer University Press, 2009), and if you’re really, really well-behaved, he might actually read some to you. This will make you happy like the sun is warming your tummy, so make a point to be there.

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Lastly: And we lost another one. Philip Jose Farmer, one of the best science-fiction authors of the last century, passed away at age 91 at his home in Peoria, IL, on Feb. 25. Best known for his “Riverworld” series, about a heaven-ish land where everyone who has ever lived coexists and has adventures, Farmer won the Hugo Award three times, as well as virtually every other award you can win in the genre. His writing was funny, weird, very adult and more than a little trippy. My personal favorites of Farmer’s were his bizarre thrill ride Stations of the Nightmare and “The Jungle-Rot Kid on the Nod,” a Tarzan story as written by William S., rather than Edgar Rice, Burroughs. He will be missed.

John G. Nettles