Distorting the Reagan record
Mark Levin Rights–and yes, I mean that with a capital “R”–some wrongs committed by McCain supporters invoking Ronald Reagan. A snippet:
… I appreciate all the references to Reagan’s efforts to advance his agenda, which did involve making compromises with a Democrat House and, throughout most of his presidency, a Democrat Congress. And if John McCain showed this kind of temperament and vision in his political career, I don’t think most who object to his candidacy during the primaries would be objecting to it today. I think we would be enthusiastically supporting him.
Painting Reagan as a tax-and-spend Republican, who basically went along with Washington and appointed a bunch of moderates to the Supreme Court, in an apparent attempt to build up McCain’s conservative and leadership credentials and mollify his critics, has the opposite effect mostly because it is inaccurate. It reminds me of Bill Clinton’s supporters using Thomas Jefferson’s alleged adultery to explain the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Reagan challenged his party from the Right. He sought the Republican nomination in 1968 against Richard Nixon and lost. He sought the nomination against Gerald Ford in 1976 and lost. He fought the Republican establishment in 1980 as well, including Bob Dole, Howard Baker, and George H. W. Bush, and won. McCain has challenged his party from the Left. I don’t know how many more times I and others have to lay out his record to prove the point. To put a fine point on it, when he had to, Reagan sought compromise from a different set of beliefs and principles than McCain. It does a great disservice to historical accuracy and the current debate to continue to urge otherwise.
Let me be more specific, rather than spar in generalities. Reagan would never have used the phrase “manage for profit” as a zinger to put down a Republican opponent. Reagan believed in managing for profit because he believed in free enterprise. That doesn’t mean he didn’t agree to certain tax increases (after fighting for and winning the most massive tax cuts in modern American history), which were incidentally to be accompanied by even greater spending cuts. McCain believes the oil companies are evil, and said it during one of the debates. Among his first acts as president, Reagan decontrolled the prices of natural gas and crude oil with the stroke of his pen because, as he understood, profit funds research and exploration. Reagan had a respect for and comprehension of private property rights and markets that McCain does not. There never would have been a Reagan-Lieberman bill, in which the federal government’s power over the private sector would have trumped the New Deal.
Reagan opposed limits on political speech. The Reagan administration ended the Fairness Doctrine and the media ownership rules, which helped create the alternative media that McCain despises. Reagan’s reverence for the Constitution would never have allowed him to support, let alone add his name to, something like McCain-Feingold…
***
Related:
Reagan vs. McCain on profits, business, and the free market
The enviro-nitwit-ization of the GOP
See what others have said
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- Reagan Challenged His Party from the Right. McCain Challenges His Party from the Left. — Mark E Levin @ NRO « Kevin’s Korner
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Categories: John McCain, Ronald Reagan
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Enviro-nitwit-ization has been in full bloom in the Republican Party for some time.
there is no friggin way I could ever vote for someone (McCain) who believes in ‘man-made’ global warming, & wants to uses taxes to pay for ‘man’s sins’.
This is such a sad state in which the party of conservatives is left. RR is turning over in his grave. I’m happy there are people like Mark Levin espousing Ronald Reagan’s legacy.
As to McCain claiming that Alito wore his conservativism on his sleeve, he apparently had no such apprehension in giving Ruth Bader Ginsberg his vote for SC.
As I’ve previously posted, McVains acquired omnipotence by osmoses enables him to be all to all things. That’s why being there, when Regan was there, makes him the Regan candidate. The perfect conservative of the twenty first century. If you can not see that just shut up and keep rowing.
Managed for profit, eh?
I’ll be honest. I trust a man who is controlled by his own self-interest, far more than I trust an altruist. I know what the greedy man is thinking, I know where his interests lie, and I know how to make sure his interests coincide with my own. The American people can trust him accept a deal: “You don’t screw us, we don’t screw you.”
The altruist is a loose cannon. He goes wherever his “heart” leads him, today, and doesn’t care who he has to stomp on, in order to help. There are no checks and balances we can put on his flights of fancy. Even worse, if we do try to restrain him, he will retaliate, with the greatest of fury. We are trying to stop his well-intentioned plans, and we must be broken, for his utopia to proceed.
The man of profit, so long as he has a reasonable surety of being caught, should he act up, is far more stable, and a more faithful servant than the altruist, who often plays the role of the zealot.
McCain has more in common with Regan than Reagan. Judith Regan that is.
I think what old John McCain needs is a true reminder of his not so conservative ways. I’d Love to hear Romeny or someone else say to him:
“Mr. McCain, I knew Ronald Reagan. I worked with Ronald Reagan. You, Sir, are NO Ronald Reagan!”
Reagan was a self made man. For McCain to compare himself to Reagan is an insult.
McCain was from military “royalty”. Despite low grades at The Naval Academy, he was accepted into pilot training. Despite losing 3 aircraft in training, he still got his wings.
Whe he retired from the Navy, he traded in his crippled wife for a newer model. Her family happened to be loaded, earning their wealth reportedly through connections to organized crime (which date back to Meyer Lansky, Al Capone’s boss). McCain received one of only 150 invitations to Joe Bonanno’s 90th birthday party, and was reported by the NYT as having met with a Russian mobster on a recent trip to Switzerland.
McCain mocks Romney for his success as a businessman, yet gets a free pass on marrying into money. McCain’s political career has been financed by the likes of Charles Keating and “friend’s” of his wife’s family.
Not quite the image of Ronald Reagan.
Reagan “knew what he didn’t know” and surrounded himself with truly remarkable people whom he would admit were his intellectual superiors. McCain fears being upstaged by anyone he views as a threat to his intellect of image.
The left wants John McCain to be the Republican nominee. They are setting him up as a bowling pin so the Democrats can easily knock him down in the general election.
Ronald Reagan loved America. John McCain loves what America has and can provide to him. And the good Senator will not let the Constitution or the American people stand in the way of his grand ambition.
What Ronald Reagan has to say to John McCain
Sadly, as outraged as the party base is, I still think that the GOP nomination will go to
John McCainHell in a hand-basket.Reagan was a good man who understood economics which alone would put him among the greatest and most courageous (i.e. rarest) of politicians. He was also a gentleman with a remarkably self-deprecatory sense of humor. America was lucky to have had him before he was consumed by Alzheimer’s.
And he was a man. He made mistakes, some of them, like a certain supreme court justice, disastrous. Fortunately, he was also wise: he knew there were very few things a president could hope to accomplish in office so he stuck with that short list and got most of it done. Thus he minimized the number of mistakes he made and the damage from them.
These are the qualities we should look for in a president: a sense of his finiteness, a consistent, short, and economically restrained agenda — one that would benefit all Americans — and a sense of humor to not take himself so seriously that he refused to listen when working with others.
If you see such a man, consider voting for him. If you do not find such a man, take your family on an outing election day.
BTW, Paul Johnson’s new book Heros has a brief and very fair portrait of Reagan. Please give it a consideration on your reading list.
Levin is dead-on.
Reagan loved the Constitution, and that is something McCain most assuredly does not love.
Reagan believed in the ideal that a free people can and should govern themselves, with as little “help” as possible from all levels of government.
He, I believe, distrusted the political class in Washington D.C. He would have deplored and fought the “incumbent protection act” that we deplore as MC CAIN-Feingold.
He also knew a phony and a liar when he saw one; and so, I hope, do we.
I’m confused about why John McCain will be speaking at CPAC. Were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama invited to speak as well?
Pulling the lever for Hillary is not an option (I think Ann Coulter was joking when she said she would- weren’t you Ann?).
However-Arnold was the last “LESSER OF TWO EVILS” that I will ever vote for.
My R friends are already saying - “You have to vote for the LTE -just think what will happen if we all left the Pres. ballot slot blank.”
My response: “The rate of decent would be expedited and people will wake up and take ACTION!”
#9, your post is exceptional. Thanks for sharing.
On February 2nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm, The Raging Republican said:
THIS IS WONDERFUL! EVERYONE SHOULD CUT AND PASTE THIS EVERYWHERE UNTIL THE ROMNEY CAMP BECOMES COMFORTABLE WITH IT ENOUGH TO START USING IT! A PERFECT “INTERNET BUMPER STICKER”. OUTSTANDING!
Excellent post, Michelle. Keep ‘em coming. Although I’m afraid that posting the stuff that John McCain doesn’t know will be a very long task.
#9 Jim M
I agree with all of your content, but would point out one small item. At the Naval Academy, (at least when I graduated), class standing had nothing to do with getting into flight school. All one needed was 20/20 vision, and the ability to pass the flight physical. Even the class Anchor Man (last in class) could go to Pensacola, provided he was physically fit to fly.
Even if I had had 20/20 vision, I was disqualified from flight school, because I knew who both of my parents were (OK, OK, just kidding).
A personal observation on McCain: I think the gentle voice and the adoption of “my friends” is to ward off the entirely correct perception that he’s otherwise a nasty, hot-tempered, foul-mouthed dictatorial prick.
No wonder Ted Kennedy loves him.
Having spent 3 years driving ships I got the impression that the primary attribute of an Aviator is perfect vision. The conviction in the Surface Navy was that the traditional way that Aviators protect their precious eyes is by avoiding any risk of straining them by reading. Therefor it is usually best to attempt to communicate with them by pictures, as in cartoons.
JSR - thanks for the clarification. That somewhat surprises me, since I believe that today’s process, at least for fighter jets, is pretty competitive. Of course, I have no first hand knowlwedge of that since I did not qualify for the Navy and joined the Army, my IQ being higher than my body temperature….
Reagan believed in the Constitution. McCain believes in a “living, breathing” Constitution; a whole separate idea which dictates, as the Supreme Court did years ago, that whatever he says it is, the Constitution is. That is much like the Congress’s belief today.
Jim M. Doesn’t that depend on the Branch? Thought I read somewhere (John Keegan perhaps?) that the primary requirement for becoming a Cavalry Officer was being slightly smarter than the horse.
That would necessarily depend on the horse in question…
I guess that explains while flying technical orders have so many pictures in them. When I was flying the three Officers that drove me to work in the KC-135 hardly knew anything about the aircraft behind their butts that was up to the enlisted swine. We used to call our pilots stick actuators. Yes, familiarity does breed contempt among enlisted aviators for the “college boys” or “the sirs” as we called them. Having lost three aircraft in training and one in combat is another reason not to vote for John McCain. Only an Admiral’s or General’s kid could get away with destroying that many aircraft and still be allowed to fly.
#20 Lifeofthemind
I was also a ship driver for 20, although I did have one carrier tour among them. In that tour I learned that hand signals work pretty well too.
#21 Jim M
Not to say that flight school itself isn’t very demanding, and most of the top spots coming out of it usually go to jet jockeys. But getting in is a different thing.
BTW, I was not qualified to go Army, as my parents were not brother and sister . . .
I will not vote for McCain. I will not vote for Hillary. Looks like this election, I’ll be disenfranchised along with millions of other Conservatives.
As an astute officer said during the Tet Offensive in 1968, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” If the traitor McCrazy gets the nomination, we’ll have to destroy the Rep. party in order to save it. Anyone who holds his nose, and votes for the lunatic in order to keep the Dhims out is a fool. Just remember you have to vote for strong conservative Senators and Governors if they’re up for re-election; we have to get rid of Grahamnesty down here. It’s the only way we can hold the pro-amnesty crowd back. BTW, I didn’t see any VC flags flying over that village when we were done. And John McCrazy can kiss my white a@@, I’ll write in Fred just to let the RNC know what I think of them.
You know what they say:
If you can’t beat them (and they just can’t beat Regan), beat ‘em down.
I will vote for McCain… as soon as somebody gives me a million dollars.
Takers?
No, in many ways this is accurate. Two of Reagan’s legacies are 1) two liberal Supreme Court justices that upheld abortion on demand and 2) cut and run policy from Muslim terrorism. So Reagan was disappointing from a conservative standpoint in these respects. Therefore, I don’t completely understand Reagan worship. Plus, didn’t he legalize a whole bunch of illegals?
President Bush has been better on Supreme Court justices and battling Muslim terrorism but terrible on the border. But was President Reagan any better on the border? He was better, though, in battling communism. Reagan would never have tolerated a Hugo Chavez.
Like all conservatives, I have my problems with John McCain and will vote for Mitt Romney. But if McCain gets the nomination, I definitely will vote for him over socialists Obama or Hillary.
Everytime I look at a picture I remember what an inspiring figure Ronald Reagan was, I’ve alway’s felt a connection to him, a man who loved his country, constitution and it’s people more than he loved himself, Ronald Reagan was a selfless man that truly worked for the people and was proud of what the American people had and could accomplish when their mind’s where inspired to do so, Ronald Reagan was that inspiration the opitamy of what it mean’s to be American. He trusted us, the people to deicde what was best for us. Ronald Reagan was a genuine, honest, trustworthy individual and had a wonderful and vibrant wit and sense of humor. His personality and word’s were the “shining city upon a hill”. He made all of us feel as if we had a roll to play in the success and prosperity of America that all of us mattered in some way, that we are as individual’s, beacon’s of freedom and should fight for those whom would not understand what freedom is if not for our effort’s to shout it loudly throughout the world.
It saddened me that he had succumed to the devastating effect’s of alzheimer’s and his voice was silenced, I know he had so much more to give to the American people.
John McCain, has done nothing more than use Ronald Reagan’s name in vain for his selfish power ambition’s, His political ad’s are flat and uninspiring, His speech’s are disingenous, His demener is contemptuous, just the opposite of Ronald Reagan. If Ronald Reagan was God, John McCain would be satan.
Ronald Reagan’s birthday is on Febuary 6 I hope that MM put’s a tribute up in his memory. Since his death I personally put my flag at half staff on Feb 6 and June 5 as a silent tribute to his memory. I truly loved Ronald Reagan he inspired me to do thing’s I thought were impossible.
*McCain’s wife is a former drug junkie
*McCain OK’d the ACLU’s Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court
*McCain-Kennedy = Mexico First
*McCain-Feingold = Censorship
*McCain has no experience running any branch of local, state or federal gov’t
*McCain was John Kerry’s first choice fo VP
*McCain will lead Gore’s global-warming scam from the oval office
*McCain ‘profits’ = evil
#30 - Gabe — BINGO
“No, in many ways this is accurate. Two of Reagan’s legacies are 1) two liberal Supreme Court justices that upheld abortion on demand and 2) cut and run policy from Muslim terrorism. So Reagan was disappointing from a conservative standpoint in these respects.”
…makes Bush look like a mountain compared to Reagan, ‘cept that
Bush failed on
*immigration
*gay marriage
*ANWR
*social security
Jim M. #9
You sir are my hero.
Thank you for clarifying in my mind what my heart has told me all along.
That’s a profound, moving post, Blind Mule. Truly.
On another issue, all I hear around here right now is “well, I guess I’ll have no one to vote for” and “well, it’s Hillary or McCain.”
DON’T BE A MEDIA PATSY!
This race is far from over. Remember how a simple “Yee-haw” brought Howard Dean from frontrunner to zero in about 48 hours - and McCain should be lucky enough to only have the baggage of a simple Yee-haw around his neck.
This race is far from over. Keep e-mailing, keep making your voices heard outside of posting here.
This is a fight for the heart and soul of America. Ronald Reagan fought that fight. The least you can do is follow his example. Republicans don’t quit, and conservatives don’t even know the meaning of the word.
No more fatalistic negativism. Get out there and keep fighting.
I am conservative and do not worship President Reagan.
You guys are not being consistent when you say what a great president President Reagan was–while dismissing Bush (who appointed two great Supreme Court justices) and McCain.
Reagan was an open borders Republican, just like Bush and McCain. He was extremely wrong on immigration. . .and yet many conservatives, such as Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are not being honest about his record.
Want proof? Here are Reagan’s own words in 1977:
from http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2705
How is he different than McCain or Bush on this issue?
I will vote for McCain if he is the nominee, despite his being liberal on certain positions. He is far better than a socialist Democrat.
Question for those who are throwing a temper tantrum, saying you will not vote for McCain over Clinton, despite McCain’s 80% conservative record. Would you not have voted for Reagan because Reagan was consistently open borders?
Reagan legalized 2.8 million illegals in 1986. He placed two liberals on the Supreme Court. He cut and ran from Lebanon. The guy was not a true conservative, yet so many of you are criticizing President Bush and McCain for having the same positions as Reagan held.
Yes, he fought for 2.8 million illegals and legalized them. He was open borders. That is a terrible legacy.
How can you criticize McCain on the same issue, then say “Ronald Reagan fought that fight?”
Let’s be consistent. Reagan was not a conservative on immigration, so McCain–like it or not–is right when he states he holds the same position on immigration that Reagan did.
Mr. Reagan also signed an abortion measure while Governor of California. He learned better.
That did not make him pro-abortion.
One thing Reagan was…he was a supporter of the law, unlike St. John of Arizona. One might be confused about where Mr. Reagan would stand on the amnesty proposed by St. John…but only if the truth was not in that person.
I think the deification of Reagan is useful politically. Reagan the myth, however, does not measure up to Reagan the reality.
The spending was unprecedented in the 1980s and he gave us the first shamnesty.
He used conservatives for pragmatic ends.
It makes me wonder if we don’t have a few seminar posters here - like on C-Span where they call in on the Republican line and say “Yes, I’ve been a Republican all my life…but now I’m voting democrat because of all the horrible, terrible things the Republicans have done!”
If you want to slam Reagan, head over to dailykos, democratunderground or huffingtonpost - they love that kind of stuff. Don’t make me smack you down here.
You’re welcome to your illusions, but I’d be happy to debate his record.
# 9
Thank you for the info.
No illusions from me, derel3433. I think you pretty much prove my point with your response.
It would HELP if you do a write-in who is somewhere TO THE RIGHT of McCain - NOT ON PAR with him.
I know it sounds cruel, but do your homework, please, before somebody thinks Fred needs to be the VEEP - SO N OT - I won’t vote for THAT TICKET, either. No matter what.
Have any of you guys seen the McCain ad on Fox News on Friday evening where he says AS A POW in the HANOI HILTON h e was INSPIRED BY THE REAGAN REVOLUTION?
Look up the dates and numbers on THAT.
Where is the MSM outrage?
SO LOL!
Voting for a GOP that allows their candidate to be picked for them the way Gerald Ford was, by ILLEGAL PROCESS with DIM selectors making up 20-24% of the process….
I owe them NOTHING.
I am content to allow them to go their own way. I did not vote for Gerald Ford.
I did not vote for Robert Dole - or H. Ross Perot, either.
If the GOP is incapable of managing their structure for their MEMBERS - then they can kiss my grits.
Third time is the charm. It shall be a sweet relief.
Ronald Reagan was honest about his position he was genuine and true to his belief’s he did’nt say he supported open immigration and free trade polocies and then turn around and say he did’nt. I don’t worship Ronald Reagan, I have a mountain of respect for him, I worship God. I think that Mitt Romney was right when he said that Reagan would have looked at the result of his error and explained truthfully why it did’nt work and that amnesty should not be given again.
I support Bush I think he will be seen as another great President in our history as with Reagan I don’t agree with all policy decision’s. The one’s that say that Bush has destroyed the Republican Party are dead wrong. I think Bush has been brilliant when it comes to dealing with the Democrat’s on the war and several other issues, he pretty much hand’s them the gun to shoot themselve’s in the foot and it crack’s me up everytime. I voted for him both time’s and I stand by that decision although I don’t agree with some of his policy decisions.
I do have a problem with McCain. I go with my instinct’s I truly looked at McCain. When someone want’s to come out and say “Straight Talk” then give it to me straight don’t change your position when it’s convienent. Something is’nt right with McCain and I don’t trust him, I did’nt have that feeling with Reagan or Bush so I can’t see myself voting for him especially right now, on Tuesday my vote will go for Romney at this point in the game.
As Gabe says, Levin is seeing things with a bit of nostalgia in his heart.
Reagan was a great president, and it’s true that he was faced with a rather liberal congress. There were limits on what he could do, and he did amazing things given these limits.
But…
He didn’t have to support the massive, massive increase in government spending during his tenure. He had the mandate to oppose the spending that is his legacy, and he didn’t even try.
Did he *talk* a good show about “smaller government?” You betcha. But facts are facts, and even “the great” Mark Levin has to accept that he worked in a White House that increased the deficit more than JFK, LBJ, or Carter ever did. That deficit represents a government that grew by leaps and bounds, even while the Chief Executive extolled the benefits of conservatism.
Reagan *wasn’t* tax and spend. He was even worse: he was BORROW and spend. Conservative economists of the day, trying to defend him, were coming up with cockamamie theories about how a “perpetual deficit isn’t necessarily bad, as long as the economy grows faster…”
This is the same logic people used in 2004, 5, and 6 when the sub-prime bubble was heading towards a burst. People were buying homes on interest-only loans, *certain* that they would increase in value, just like Reagan was betting on an ever expanding economy.
What is stupid for these sub-prime borrowers was just as stupid for Reagan in the 1980’s. He is one of the Founding Fathers of “the sun will come up tomorrow” Sub-Prime borrowing mentality.
Great in many ways? Sure. But fiscally Reagan was a train wreck.
These are facts, folks. Look them up.
Re: the Supreme Court, I always felt that Reagan was duped. On paper, his nominations *did* appear conservative. How many liberals like O’Connor was Arizona known for?
I believe there is an aspect of Reagan’s Supreme Court legacy that goes beyond the common wisdom. We all look at how his appointees ended up voting as his legacy, and that’s fair enough. What we don’t notice is that things have changed since Reagan, BECAUSE of Reagan.
Specifically: President’s don’t act “hands off” with nominees anymore, during the interviews. Rather, you have to think that they are VERY direct and blunt.
“HOW WILL YOU VOTE ON GUN CONTROL? ABORTION? IMMIGRATION? ETC. IF YOU WANT MY NOMINATION, ANSWER AND BE SPECIFIC ABOUT IT…”
When O’Connor described her interviews with Reagan, they were nothing like that. I’m sure that they are now.
Ron was duped, but nobody after him - left or right - has been.
One thing most folks miss about Reagan’s “Massive spending increase” - the spending forced the Soviet Union to try to match it, and that straw finally broke the camel’s back.
It was an absolutely brilliant strategy, based on the knowledge that the Soviet Union was matching the US ante on defense initiatives. The Soviet Union was in no position to match the US stride for stride in terms of spending, and it’s attempts to do so broke an already dysfunctional economy.
Not much is written about the strategy, mainly because it was employed by a Republican President and it worked.
The most significant threat to US security wiped out without a single shot fired. Asymetric warfare at its finest.
Also, let’s not foirget that for at least Reagan’s last 2 years in office, the beginnings of Alzheimers started to make its mark.
We elect Presidents in this country, not dietys. Presidents are men, not gods. And as men, even the best intentioned and honorable among them will make mistakes. I believe Reagan would be the first to admit he made mistakes. The amnesty was passed under the pretense that it would be the last and only amnesty - a recognition of past failures that was supposed to be followed by strict enforcement to avoid being in that situation again. The mistake here was trusting that both Congress and subsequent administrations would pick up the task of enforcement. We now know that did not happen.
The fact is that when a President’s legacy is written it almost never state’s the bad only the good, the rose colored glasses go on so to speak, I think if we looked back at Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and T. Roosevelt we could find all kind’s of policy decisions that the people of that time and our’s would disagree with that’s just the way it is. It would be nice to have the perfect conservitive Republican President but I think that would be a little like wishing you’d win the lottery. Reagan was a great President, Bush I believe will be seen as a great President but I agree there are several policy decision’s that can be scrutinized on both.
You won’t be able to. Reagan was an open borders Republican. He stated that illegals were doing the agriculture work “Americans won’t do.” He legalized 2.8 million illegals. When Muslim terrorists attacked our marines, he cut and ran. This contributed to 9/11.
Reagan was not a true conservative, so when we deify him we are only hurting the conservative movement. Here is the proof: The liberal media is counting on you not to vote for McCain, who has an 80% conservative record. Not living in reality, i.e. not wanting to say anything bad about Reagan, only serves them.
I think President Bush will be considered a great president by history, as was Reagan. In fact, he was better than Reagan by far. He took the fight to the enemy, he kept military spending high (as did Reagan), he gave us two conservative Supreme Court justices. On the down side: he was open borders (but so was Reagan).
Blind_Mule,
I’m also going to vote for Romney, but the primary in Virginia is not until a couple of more weeks.
McCain’s position on shamnesty and on torture really irritated me. But he still has an 80% conservative record, so I will vote for him in a general election. Also, the troops and veterans really like him and would respect him as a commander in chief. I can’t imagine a Clinton or Obama as commander in chief.
Who knows? McCain might actually turn out to be more conservative as president than as Senator. We will have to see what his campaign promises are. Right now he is campaigning to secure the border, and he is pro-life.
I also believe that Presient Bush will be considered one of the best presidents by history when we have distance of time to judge.
Yay!! I was right!
This is now the unofficial bash Reagan thread!!
Remember, just like the liberals have said Reagan was the focus of evil in the entire world!!
Death to Reagan!!
Death to Amerika!!
/sarc off
You’re arguing just like a liberal–no attention to substance. Reagan was NOT a true conservative: he was the godfather of liberal shamnesty, when the going got tough in Lebanon, he pulled out, and he gave us two liberal Supreme Justices.
I think overall he was a good president; Bush has been better in substance and results: two conservative Supreme Court Justices, a missile defense shield, high defense spending, and routing our enemies abroad.
You can’t criticize Bush or McCain for being open borders and then at the same time not criticize Reagan. That is my whole point in bashing Reagan.
No Gabe, maybe you missed my:
I was arguing exactly the same way you have been arguing - except that I have been using sarcasm.
At least you admit that you’ve been bashing Reagan.
I assure you she is not joking.
I also am quite stunned about the arrogance in McCain’s commercial. He says he was a Reagan follower while a POW (1967- 1973). No Way. Reagan just became governor of California in 1966 and he was not a national figure or highly regarded as a conservative thinker. If McCain truly was a conservative thinker in 1967, he would have been a Goldwater Republican, not a Reagan Republican as he pretends.
Again he is just pandering.
Maybe he was talking about his movies or as President of the screen actor’s guild.
I am thinking maybe he listened to Reagan’s baseball replays on the radio
Maybe McCain DID follow Reagan….maybe John McCain is really “Bonzo”….
Reagan did challenge the Republican party from the right. He proved that cynical and shameless dishonesty was a winning strategy in presidential politics.
He ran on balancing the budget. David Stockman came on board to do just that. It turned out that Reagan had no intention of cutting anything substantial. He just wanted to cut taxes for the rich. Stockman quit in protest.
In response to a terrorist bombing of US forces in Lebanon, Reagan bravely “redeployed” the troops back to America. Bin Laden told reporters that’s what convinced him terrorism against America payed.
He authorized selling arms to our mortal enemies (Iran) to use the money (illegally) to fund terrorists in Nicaragua. He lied about approving the operation, then claimed he hadn’t lied, only forgotten: “what did he know and when did he forget it?”
He told the Israeli Prime Minister that he had visited a concentration camp with a film crew just after it was liberated, but in fact he never left America.
I think his only real connection to Reagan is the Alzheimer’s
…and who didn’t expect lgm to drop into this topic to get in his shots at Reagan too?
So, what you’re tellin’ us, Soap, is that you’re easy, just not cheap?
LOL
I was wondering when someone would finally make that point, Jim. Part of RReagan’s strategy was to spend the Communist Soviet Union out of existence. Capitalism was in a lot better position to take the battle to Communism in this venue. It was actually a brilliant approach. Yes. Our deficit did increase but look at the historic change it brought about. Had he and his advisors not had such forsight, where would we be now in the fight against Communism?
Barry Goldwater, my namesake. My father has always been a staunch Republican. Dad always refers to Goldwater as the forerunner to Ronald Reagan, laying the groundwork to make Reagan’s election possible.
I don’t know that Goldwater was that much of a sacraficial lamb but you do make a good point as to why McCain wasn’t a “Goldwater Republican” in the 60’s, Mr. P.
Well, it did take until #58 to see lgm chime in.
Folks, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I will…
Defense spending boomed during the Reagan years, this is true. It was the largest peace-time buildup in history, and it clearly was aimed at the USSR. All true, and all a testament to Reagan’s brilliance as a leader.
During these same eight years, however, entitlements grew as fast as defense - in some cases, faster.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/charts_P/p9.cfm
That’s from the heritage foundation, folks, about as pro-Reagan as they come.
It doesn’t change the fact that Regan lowered taxes (which kept federal receipts flat) while increasing not only defense spending, but spending on Medicare and Medicaid grew - particularly Medicare.
And this was long, long before the baby boom was looking to retire. No, the baby boom was the “Me Generation” when Reagan was president, so if Medicare soared, it soared because individual coverage levels went way, way up.
I’m not bashing Reagan - Reagan was a great president. Fiscally, however, he could have been better.