Chris Matthews has written an article for The Boston Globe
titled “When Politics Was Friendly.”
Although President Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill had their political
differences, he says, they were actually pals.
Nonsense.
O’Neill
repeatedly attacked Reagan at a very personal level. “The evil is
in the White House at the present time,” he said in July 1984.
“And that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working
class of America and the future generations of America, and who likes to ride a
horse. He's cold. He's mean. He's got ice water for blood.”
In her memoir, Reagan speechwriter Peggy
Noonan quoted Chief of Staff Don Regan: “Sometimes they’d have a meeting and Tip
would be there and they’re laughing and getting along and it’s very warm. And
then,’ Regan made a fist and punched it into his palm, ‘Tip would leave, go up
to the Hill and turn on him just like a snake! It was treachery!’”
