"When Character was King"

I again apologize for lack of new material, but I have been pretty sick recently. Between sleep and work, there hasn’t been time for much, but I have been reading Richard Reeves’ biography of President Reagan’s time in office. It’s very good (if you’re into that kinda stuff) and it illuminates how our last two-term Republican president wasn’t all that different from our current one. I have excerpted one paragraph below that readers might find humorous. Do know that this occurs one week after the President was shot in the chest, so at least he had that for an excuse:

Soviet troops and tanks, along with units from other Warsaw Pact countries, were on the borders of Poland - two Red Army divisions were permanently stationed inside the country - on “maneuvers” and “war games” called Soyuz-81 that already lasted three weeks. The Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, flew to Prague on Sunday to make an unusual appearance at the Czech Communist Party Congress. He then sat behind the Czech party leader, Gustav Husak, applauding as Husak compared the threat of Solidarity union unrest and strikes in Poland to the situations that led to Soviet invasions of East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia itself in 1968. Warnings of the “gravest consequences for East-West relations” were issued from the White House - along with statements that the President was conferring with aides as the crisis deepened. The American television networks were breaking into regular programming for live coverage of speeches by Lech Walesa, the Solidarity leader, and the new Polish leader General Jaruzelski. During one of their televised speeches, an intern checking Reagan’s room noticed that the President was sitting up, happily watching television cartoons.