The irony of CBS’ wimpy cancellation of the Reagan biography (Tompaine.com) under conservative pressure, it occurs to me, comes when you juxtapose the story with the Terry Schiavo saga in Florida. It has long stuck in my craw that rightwing reverence for the two-bit actor’s machine-made performance as President (in which he gutted decades of social reform and set an ongoing precedent for American cannibalization of the poor and disadvantaged) has led lawmakers to abandon a longstanding precedent and memorialize Reagan by naming airports, highways, buildings, bridges and whatever after him while he is still alive. One way to think about it is as a covert acknowledgement that Reagan’s advanced Alzheimer’s dementia amounts to a living death, that the man they knew is already long gone, even though his body still breathes and circulates blood. Isn’t there some incongruity, then, with the conservative cause celebre of refusing to let go of illusions about Schiavo and fighting dirty to keep her alive at all costs?