Posted on 06/14/2004 9:14:37 AM PDT by areafiftyone
This weekend's announcement by Patti Davis Reagan that she intended to take on the Bush administration over the issue of stem cell research isn't the first time she's found herself on the same page with Sen. John Kerry.
In a move that most viewed as coincidental, Kerry just happened to decide to devote his Saturday radio address to the stem cell issue at the same time Patti was penning her Newsweek piece on the issue.
But lo and behold, it turns out that Ms. Davis and Mr. Kerry aren't exactly strangers to one another.
Back in 1989, for instance, Davis turned to ex-Kerry staffer Eric Hamburg for help with her second novel, "Deadfall," about the U.S.'s involvement in Nicaragua. Patti was still in her rebellious phase and Kerry was an outspoken critic of her father's decision to fight the Soviet-backed Sandinista regime.
Around the same time, Davis approached Sen. Kerry directly for help with her Save-the-Dolphin campaign. The Massachusetts Democrat was then a member of Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and vice chairman of the National Ocean Policy Study.
She invited Kerry to see film footage taken by fellow environmentalist Sam LaBudde of dolphins being killed by tuna fishermen.
Before long, her visits to Kerry's office - the senator was a bachelor at the time - sparked reports that the two were an item, something that Davis denied.
"Patti wants her denial on the record," reported the Washington Times in 1990.
"She says there's definitely no romantic interest between the two. Nothin' but dolphins. As a matter of fact, they've only been to lunch together once - several months ago in an L.A. restaurant. Born-on-the-Fourth-of-Julyster Ron Kovic was also along on that lunch date."
"People can't figure out what I'm doing in my private life. I drive them crazy," Davis explained.
Still, as recently as two years ago - the same month Kerry announced for president, as happenstance would have it - Davis was talking about Kerry's influence on her life in, of all places, National Review.
Explaining how Sept. 11 attacks had changed her outlook, the anti-Bush Reagan daughter noted:
"In the weeks that followed [the attacks], I wept almost every time I saw a flag or heard the verses of 'America the Beautiful.' Yet behind my tears was the memory of a young girl who, decades ago, used to talk about leaving America, who was angry at the war in a jungle country called Vietnam where fresh-faced boys were being sent to slaughter and be slaughtered. 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?' John Kerry asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?'"
Of course, now that the issue of stem cell research has given Democrats a way use President Reagan's death to bash Bush, mum's the word in the media about previous Kerry-Davis alliances.
Ms. Davis, to use her "professional" name, attempted to use her long-running feud with her parents as a springboard for a literary career. Disgraceful. Not to mention her "Playboy Centerfold" adventure (see below). 
Mercifully, examples such as those above mean that nobody takes her nor her sibling seriously.
I have been reading Peggy Noonan's excellent book on Ronald Reagan, "When Character Was King", and Noonan tells about how Patty was notified of her father being shot.
A secret service agent interrupted Patti at her shrink's office where she was in therapy...not that there's anything wrong with that.
So when Patty was a rebellious hippie punk, she went to Kerry for anti-American advice. That says a lot more about kerry to me.
Nothing more pitiful than a grown adult carrying around a case of "mommie and daddy didnt love me" blues.
Nobody takes her seriously, no matter the topic.
However, I seem to remember a column she wrote a few years back where she wrote about the honor of her father vs. the crudeness of Clinton. I appreciated that.
She also wrote a couple of columns about Hinckley getting sprung. She was against it and saw it as a political effort especially by liberal lawyers. I appreciated that too.
My first reaction when this Nancy Reagan stem cell campaign started was: Another orchestrated media campaign.
It's obviously not a coincidence that so many different media sources all pick up on these themes at the same time.
In this case, their purpose is transparent. It is, of course, pro-abortion, which is dear to the media's heart. But it's also a wedge issue that pretends to pit Bush against Reagan in order to keep Bush from benefiting from the obvious points of resemblance to his predecessor.
If they can portray Bush as being ungracious to the grieving widow, or uncaring about health care, so much the better.
It was no coincidence that the issue arose precisely at this time.
Nancy feels strongly about this and that is her perogative. The media and the Kerry camp don't have any right to politicize this. This is a personal issue for Nancy. When Nancy is ready again to take this issue up she will. In the meantime let the woman go thru a period of mourning first.
Is it true that Patti Davis posed nude for Playboy a few years ago? If so, she must be the smallest-breasted woman ever to have that honor.
Yes she did. She was 49 and dropped out of college to do it in 1994.
The Gipper didn't spank Patti Reagan enough when she was little.
According to the IMDB her measurements are: Measurements: 33B-25-35 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Wonder why she hasn't breast implants?????????
I can believe it. Matthews get that way when he talks about Hillary too. There are puddles on the floor he is drooling so much.
To cursed with kids like these and continue to be pro-life, attests to the strength and moral fiber of the Late Great President Reagan.
To "be" cursed with kids like these.
My comment about Patti being a misguided little girl was meant to show the pathos of her chosen persona. Certainly, she is middle aged. Certainly, she is seeking attention by the way she dresses and by trying to shock us with the company she keeps. She's trying to carve out something somewhere. I am sad for Mrs. Reagan that her daughter is so pathetic in her errant cries for attention.
Is that Playboy Centerfold cover real?
I don't know about anybody else but I cringed at her "I wanted to kill the rest of them" statement concerning the goldfish at the funeral. Maybe I'm just nitpicking but I thought it was tasteless.
I agree that Mike Reagan is a man for whom the Reagans must all be proud. My heart is with him and his love for his father and for Nancy Reagan. He is a man who deserves--and receives--my respect.
-Howard Fineman confirmed that Ron Jrs' eulogy was indeed a swipe at Bush.-
Never doubted it. I did hope he didn't mean it the way it sounded, but he had a hard, bitter look on is face at the time. Sad that he would use his father's funeral to promote his leftist agenda.
I've noticed the kerry-is-very-religious-but-doesn't-wear-it-on-his-sleeve talking point has been thrown out there. With Ron's blessing, I'm sure.
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