Reddit reviews The Clothes Have No Emperor: A Chronicle of the American '80s

He was pretty clueless even though he had spent some time as governor. It was kind of the same scenario we saw with Dubya where advisors and the VP were doing the actual driving. He constantly complained about being interrupted from sleep, TV, or magazine time. Nancy often scolded his advisors for interrupting his relaxation time and refused to allow them to wake him several times.

During press conferences he often stopped and asked his handlers about the questions he was being asked because he was out of the loop on a lot of what was actually being decided or done. He saw himself as too busy to have to keep up with his duties so he
let most of it be done for him.

For a good overview snapshot of his presidency and a good timeline of the 80's in America, you should check out The Clothes Have No Emperor.
https://www.amazon.com/Clothes-Have-No-Emperor-Chronicle/dp/0671673394

Yeah, someone dying is my best guess. It had to have been either some kind of compulsive thing or maybe it was some kind of journalistic research project along the lines of this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Clothes-Have-Emperor-Chronicle/dp/0671673394

Almost definitely the first one, though.

EDIT: I guess the Amazon page for that book doesn't really describe it. The author and a few interns and assistants kept comprehensive records of the front page stories in something like 20 major newspapers and the lead stories on all of the major news shows every day for both terms of the Reagan administration, and that book is one of the things that came out of it; it's a fun read and pretty darkly satirical in its way.