By Debbie Schlussel

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Nancy Reagan brought style & glamour back to the White House & Then Michelle Hussein Obama Took It Away. RIP #tcot #gop #NancyReagan

— Debbie Schlussel (@DebbieSchlussel) March 6, 2016

I have mixed feelings about the late Nancy Davis Reagan, who died today, at age 94. She is the reason we had eight years of a conservative President in Ronald Reagan. She also brought style and glamour back to the White House. And my family has a personal connection to hers with her relatives bravely defending mine against anti-Semitism. But she also did some irksome things.

Nancy Reagan was born Anne Frances Robbins, but she was always called, “Nancy.” When she was six years old, her mother, an actress, married Loyal Davis, MD. Dr. Davis raised Nancy, and he was a staunch and outspoken conservative. He was also outspoken on medical issues and was chairman of the Department of Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School. It was there–at Northwestern University Hospital–that my great-uncle, Maurice J. Schlussel, MD, encountered anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic based discrimination in hiring and promotions. Loyal Davis bravely stood up for my great-uncle, beating back the anti-Semites, and he did it again at Veterans Administration hospitals in Chicago. My late father (who was very close to Uncle Maurice and spent summers in Chicago in my great-uncle’s apartment atop the VA Hospital which Uncle Maurice ultimately headed) always reminded us of this. It’s an example of how conservatives–back in the day when conservatism was rife with Jew-hatred–stood up for Jews.

Nancy Reagan Stepdad Dr. Loyal Davis Stood Up for my Great-Uncle Dr. Maurice Schlussel Against Anti-Semitism @ NW'n Hospital. RIP #tcot #gop

— Debbie Schlussel (@DebbieSchlussel) March 6, 2016

Loyal Davis and my great-uncle Maurice (pronounced, “Morris”) also continued their friendship in the U.S. Army during World War II, where Dr. Davis was a Colonel in the Army and consultant in neurology in Europe, and Uncle Maurice became the chief medical officer for the South Pacific after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Among many other accomplishments and contributions, Davis was known for developing “a helmet to protect airplane crewmen from shrapnel and also improved the treatment of injuries resulting from high-altitude frostbite.”

Ultimately, Loyal Davis’ political influence on daughter Nancy Davis also reached her husband Ronald Reagan. Nancy Reagan convinced Reagan, previously a Democrat and actors union prez, to see the conservative way was the right way. And he became a Republican and eventually pursued a political career. Would we have had a conservative President Ronald Reagan without a Nancy Davis Reagan? I doubt it. And she deserves credit for that. A lot of credit.

After the Jimmy Carter years, during which America had a “Kick Me” sign on its back, Nancy brought glamour and style back to the White House, bringing designer dresses (especially those in her favorite color, red) and Hollywood actors and actresses–Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, etc.–to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Carters left the White House in a mess, with cracked ceiling and chipping paint, all of which Nancy fixed and restored. But she came under unfair and loud fire for redecorating the White House and buying expensive china, even though none of it was funded by the taxpayers (it was entirely paid for by private donations). In contrast, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Hussein Obama Idi Amin Dada has done a lot more redecorating, with little notice and no criticism.

While the ’80s are much-derided because of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, they were in fact a great time in America, and far better than what we have now. They were a time of revival, jobs, and economic growth. Plus we were respected around the world again, after the Carter Iran hostage crisis days. And the style that Nancy Reagan brought back to the White House was part of that culture. The Arnold Scaasi, Escada, and Bill Blass dresses she wore (which then also became a wardrobe mainstay on TV series like “Dynasty”) and stylish glamor, despite her impending senior citizen years, were a boon to not just the fashion industry, but many other areas of the economy. Remember the Jelly Bellies that were a White House staple? Or the horseback-riding and Western clothing? They all influenced the American culture we were living in at the time. And all for the better. Again, all of this despite constant media attacks on Nancy for this and her portrayal as sort of a Marie Antoinette figure. Contrast that with the barely an eyelash batted at Mrs. Obama’s several-thousand-dollar ugly dresses and shoes–all of which are praised and gushed over by an eager media groupthink.

But there were also the Nancy negatives. Of the three surviving Reagan children, only the one to whom she didn’t give birth, my friend Michael Reagan (on whose former nationally-syndicated radio show I used to be a regular), turned out to be a mensch (and the only one who turned out to be a conservative). And Nancy Reagan didn’t treat him well. It’s well known that Nancy Reagan ostracized Michael Reagan from his childhood and beyond. She treated him horribly. Like the hired help. No, actually, she treated him worse than the hired help. But Michael Reagan is classy and, instead of rightfully speaking out about how he was treated, he’s taken the high road today (as he always does). Check out his Twitter (follow me on Twitter) tweets below.

I am saddened by the passing of my step mother Nancy Reagan…She is once again with the man she loved.God Bless…
…

— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) March 6, 2016

Nancy is where she has always wanted to be with her Ronnie…Now she is at peace…

— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) March 6, 2016

Muslim Hate for Nancy Reagan . . .

@DebbieSchlussel good riddance khrone

— Nabil Al-Murabit (@Scfan2064) March 6, 2016

You Stay Classy . . .

@DebbieSchlussel Cunt.

— ?KarlaBellaMEdMS? (@KaeAltoBella) March 6, 2016

@karolynsmithMP @LiberalPhenom @DebbieSchlussel you mad? pic.twitter.com/esRwSFPvN0

— bwdone2017 (@theonlyadult) March 6, 2016

.@DebbieSchlussel Michelle's full name is Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama and you also need to die

— lintellect (@lintellect) March 6, 2016

The two kids to whom Nancy Reagan gave birth and then “raised,” turned out to be creeps and cretins. Ron Reagan, Jr. is a failed ballet dancer, actor, and leftist pundit. I appeared on both TV and radio shows he hosted, and I can unequivocally say that this guy’s an a–hole. Not nice and not very bright. And that has nothing to do with his politics. He’s just a schmuck. You can’t say much better about Patti Davis, a constant embarrassment while Reagan was in office and after he left. It’s not just that she posed naked in Playboy (she was the original Presidential Kardashian) or that she wrote a thinly-veiled “fiction” book attacking her parents. It’s also not just that she was another failed Reagan kid whose most promising “career” was as a concubine to celebrities (Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon and actors Timothy Hutton and Peter Strauss, among others). And it’s not just that she was publicly against her father’s policy–another failed leftist like brother Ronnie, Jr.). It’s that, like bro Ronnie, she was a selfish piece of crap of a “human being” (if you can call her that).

Parents can be the best parents in the world and still have one of their kids do bad things. But Nancy Reagan was a two-fer in this department. And you have to believe she had something to do with that. Her kids are lowlifes with fancy rearing.

Having worked on Capitol Hill in the waning years of the Reagan Presidency, I can tell you that it’s well known that Nancy wasn’t a nice person. At least not to the conservative rank and file Republican officeholders and activists. She wasn’t liked. My former boss, the late Congressman Philip M. Crane, and his late wife Arlene Crane, fit in the category of non-fans. They had story after story of what a creep Nancy was to them, even after Crane lost his Presidential bid running to the right of Reagan in 1979 and enthusiastically supported Reagan.

And, then, there are the nutty things, which earned the bad press they got. There was the astrology stuff, and the fact that Nancy Reagan used astrologers to schedule important Reagan speeches and policy moves. Although it turns out that most of these were just issues of timing and not policy substance, you just can’t have a White House and a President who operates at the direction of Dionne Warwick’s Psychic Network (although that would still be preferable to a White House operating at the direction of Valerie Jarrett’s Ms. Thang Network and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright “G-d D-mn America!” Alumni Club).

Nancy Reagan’s program to combat drugs–the “Just Say No” campaign–was laudable but had mixed results. You can’t blame her, though. She gave it the old school try, appearing on shows like “Diff’rent Strokes” and making public speeches with Michael Jackson (at the time, we didn’t know he was the ultimate drug addict and a possible child molester). And I’d much rather have Nancy Reagan telling kids not to do drugs–which is a good and legitimate goal–than have fatass Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Hussein Obama Idi Amin Dada getting into people’s kitchens and refrigerators, starving America’s school children, and making stupid, uber-narcissistic, self-congratulatory exercise and rap videos. And the Nancy Reagan First Lady reign, though glamorous and fashionable, was never about, “Look at me, look at me, looookaaatmeee, Memememememememe, look at my arms, look at my arms, look at me with my zillion-dollar trainer, me me me me memememememe.” Nancy Reagan had grace, humility, dignity, and class–all things sadly missing from her fellow Chicagoans currently in the White House.

Say what you will, but know that Nancy Reagan never attended dinners with Jew-hating Islamic terrorism supporters Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi or gave them a standing ovation.

But there were other Nancy Reagan politics–after Ronald Reagan’s announcement of Alzheimer’s and later after his death–that should have been unwelcome. She embraced the Obamas, gave interviews attacking conservatives, endorsing RINOs (like John McCain), and saying she’s pro-abortion and pro-stem cell research. Nancy Reagan should have stayed retired from politics, but sadly she did not. And like Barry Goldwater, in her less lucid years she went liberal left.

Nancy Reagan convinced Ronald Reagan to be a Republican. But then she became a liberal & nutty astrology fan. RIP #tcot #gop #NancyReagan

— Debbie Schlussel (@DebbieSchlussel) March 6, 2016

Overall, I think Nancy Reagan was a good First Lady and probably the most underrated and unfairly-criticized First Lady in contemporary times. She loved and supported her husband. And she did things that were good for America, both socially and psychologically. She is in no small part responsible for bringing America the man who would lead us into many years of prosperity and strength, characteristics both sadly gone today. Regardless of how she was personally, Mrs. Reagan was an American patriot and a loving wife who gave us a great President with great politics.

And for that we should all be eternally grateful.

Nancy Reagan, Rest In Peace.