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Ron Reagan Jr. Steps Up to Bat With Left Chat
by Joe Hagan

On Monday, July 28, Ron Reagan started a week-long run as guest co-host on MSNBC’s Buchanan & Press, with the son of the former President sitting decidedly to the left of Pat Buchanan. But Mr. Reagan was doing more than just filling the seat of vacationing co-host Bill Press; he told The Observer that he hopes to anchor his own liberal-leaning talk show. And what better place to test his talking head than against Old Man Crossfire himself, the squinty-eyed hatchet man who, after all, worked for his father back in the day. Having spent the past three years hosting dog shows on the cable network Animal Planet, Mr. Reagan relishes the idea of going up against the bark and bite of the right wing.

"I’d love to do another talk show, and I’m talking to some other people about that," he said following his Buchanan & Press appearance. "I’m still in the planning stages, and I think there’s a lot of room for this. Despite this supposed ‘liberal bias’ in the media, I can hardly find any on TV."

Mr. Reagan was invited to Buchanan & Press by the show’s new executive producer, Tammy Haddad, who helped invent Larry King Live in 1985. Ms. Haddad said she met Mr. Reagan at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and was impressed by the former ballet dancer and sometime TV presence.

"People think that there aren’t many good liberals out there that can carry a show," said Ms. Haddad. "We had dinner together and I thought, ‘This guy is so good, he should be on TV.’ I’m sure he’ll get offers after this. Let’s hope he talks to MSNBC first."

MSNBC might want to act fast: Mr. Reagan said he was approached by two journalists associated with an "Internet entity" who were pitching, he said, an "unabashedly" liberal show to cable networks. "We’ve had the conversations, and now we’re meeting people at various media outlets," he said, adding that the proposed show is of the time-honored sit-down variety, "with the telltale, piquant little bits like ‘The Lie of the Week’ or a ‘Right-Wing Moment’—like Tom DeLay talking about teaching children about biology: ‘We evolutized up from the mud!’ O.K., we’re in trouble as a country."

The show could be a tough sell. To date, the 45-year-old Mr. Reagan hasn’t shown much prime-time promise. Since working as the "adventure correspondent" on ABC’s Good Morning America in the late 1980’s, the thin, affable, occasionally acid-tongued Son of the Gipper has mostly bummed around the cable dial. After The Ron Reagan Show, a syndicated late-night chat-fest, failed to take off in 1991, he worked as a producer and host on E!, hosted a computer show for Cnet, did documentary voice-overs for the History Channel and co-hosted Fox’s short-lived newsmagazine Front Page. Things have been a bit better over at Animal Planet, where, he said, his pooch program gets the highest ratings on the network. Still, he’s yet to equal the sensation he caused during his father’s second administration when he hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Live and danced around the stage in his tighty-whities in a Risky Business skit.

Lately, he’s been edging back into the political fray. Mr. Reagan first went on MSNBC as Mr. Buchanan’s guest in April to discuss George W. Bush. During the Iraq war, Mr. Reagan described the Bush administration as "overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive and just plain corrupt. I don’t trust these people."

For his part, Mr. Buchanan, the former director of communications for Reagan père, said he’d made the younger Reagan’s acquaintance years ago.

"I’ve not known him well, but I saw him when I was out at his dad’s place in Pacific Palisades in 1976, when he was a teenager," Mr. Buchanan said, adding, "His father’s a great hero of mine."

Mr. Reagan said he knew liberals aren’t known for being great TV.

"I think the bar is set higher for liberals," he said. "It’s easy to be Ann Coulter."

Regarding Ms. Coulter’s recent comment about Joseph McCarthy being an American patriot, for instance, Mr. Reagan said that "to dignify those remarks by refuting them takes time. Conservatives have it easy: They just blurt out some nonsense."

In preparation for the July 28 broadcast of Buchanan & Press, MSNBC’s Web site promised: "Sparks fly when Pat and guest host Ron Reagan Jr. tackle the controversy over America’s first gay high school." But the sparks came mostly from Mr. Buchanan, who had the benefit of his trademark bark and tomahawk-chop gesture.

Mr. Reagan was smooth enough, but he didn’t leap off the screen. He did get in a slightly school-marmish jab at conservative guest Michael Long when he said: "Hey, Mike, I can’t help but notice that anything involving gay people gets you conservatives’ panties in a real twist. Why is that?" Then he cocked his head and looked quizzical for effect—a little too quizzical, maybe, but it seemed like a workable riff.

In any case, Mr. Long used volume to bark Mr. Reagan down. "Don’t play that kind of game with me, Ron!"

Mr. Buchanan ended things with the kind of zinger his audience laps up with a spoon. Talking about the gay-only Harvey Milk High School, he noted with a chuckle, "They might have a great football team!"

Ugly, but pure gravy to America’s channel surfers.

Tonight, Mr. Reagan sees if he can get Mr. Buchanan to fetch. [MSNBC, 43, 6 p.m.]