Biography Must Wait: Over the weekend, I read the first few chapters of Dutch, Edmund Morris's quasi-biography of Reagan (based on Flyer's recommendation, if not wholehearted endorsement). I gave up. It's tripe, and it sheds light on the trickiness of early, official biographies. As I'm sure you know, Morris's conceit is to insert himself as narrator, a narrator who, coincidentally, had many brushes with Reagan throughout his careers. The condescension is palpable, the opportunity for cheap psychoanalysis is never missed, and the (all too many) parts that focus on the "life" of the narrator are trite, distracting, and poor service to the reader.

I recall that Morris's apologia for the structure was that he found Reagan enigmatic, inscrutable, and felt that the false-memoir approach was the only way he could see to get at the character of Reagan. Hogwash. Reagan was a thoroughly documented man who lived in the public eye for a surprisingly large part of his life. Many of his closest associates and his bitterest rivals are still alive. A large book of Reagan's own writings has been published recently. Morris's helplessness in the face of all this, his admission that Reagan is essentially unknowable, is tantamount to surrender. But biographies have been written about presidents, some long dead, who were equally inscrutable. (Anyone familiar with the standard scholarly interpretation of the honorable, gentlemanly polymath Jefferson should have a look at the clumsily scheming dilettante who shows up in David McCullough's John Adams.) Further, Morris's surrender endorses the enduring belief that Reagan was an empty suit who smiled behind a desk that never gathered much paper. That he was an actor for whom the presidency was just another role -- one in which he spoke the lines and hit the marks and then went home to watch the rushes.

The book, I think, makes a compelling argument that good biography cannot be done quickly. Morris is too close to the prejudices and politics of Reagan's own time, lacking the benefit of more than 15 years of hindsight. Will history judge Reagan more favorably? Who knows? I think it's likely that he will be seen as a figure of complexity, rather than simplicity. (This change is already happening.) His administration will be remembered for its ideals, but also its many flaws. But, honestly, in the second half of the 20th century, who were the giants in the White House? Whatever your politics, whatever your opinion of either man, there were only two: Lyndon Johnson and Reagan. Of the two, I'd argue that, 50 years hence, Reagan will be seen as the more important of the two. Morris, I think, would never concede that possibility.