Login HereNo, Ronald Reagan didn't appeal to people's optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted. He kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about "state's rights" in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- the site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964's Freedom Summer. He thus put up a welcome sign for "Reagan Democrats," peeling off white voters who were unhappy with the multi-ethnic coalition within the Democratic Party.
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 -- one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn't free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis. He popularized the notion that all government is bad government and in eight short years put in place the architecture for decades of GOP graft and corruption.
There's enough hagiography of Reagan on the right, I don't think Democrats really need to go there.
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indictment?
We admire President Carter.
So do we.
EPU-ed — CNN just reported a Michigan Republican Congressman turned lobbyist just indicted for aiding terrorist groups? I didn’t catch the name….
p.s. to Kiddo — I’m with your last thread comment. No connection at all to Edwards campaign but I urge everyone to contribute @ johnedwards.com
Donate early, donate often…and we will get better Democrats.
Back to work now….
Gore Vidal once remarked the Senate’s rich sense of irony in naming one of the nation’s most unsafe airports after the president who fired the air traffic controllers.
History is going to be kind to that man..
Lets not forget that living standards for workers kept going down during his Presidency. Lets not forget selling weapons to Iran while Iran’s terror group Hezbollah was blowing up Marines in Lebanon.
Ronnie Wormfood.
Good place for ‘im.
There was a ton of nefarious shit going on under Raygun, which gave rise to the current crop of miscreant criminals running around DC like the cockroaches they are.
As a figurehead, he was a beaut.
Reagan — guzzle with impunity
Bush — shop ’til you drop…
you got this right on, Jane!
mutter, mutter, mutter, gotta finish that project…now, mutter, mutter….
That was in response to nice comments re; Jimmy Carter….need more coffee.
Mark Deli Siljander
should have said he’s from Michigan
Former Michigan Rep. Mark Deli Siljander is charged with being part of a ring that sent $260,000 to a warlord allied with the Taliban.
The result of the Carter Administration programs to promote conservation and efficiency was that the country’s total energy consumption didn’t rise above 1978 levels until 1994. And that’s with Reagan undermining them as much as he could.
But Cheney is sure that conservation can’t really accomplish anything other than making people feel good about themselves.
He went to the Waffen SS cemetery at Bitburg to reconcile the wounded
feelings of the Nazis just like Philadelphia MS. A Republican op told me
candidly once “We’ll never get the Nazis out of the Party, they are just
too entrenched.” Reagan was a union busting thug, bigot, you name it.
Jane, where is your patriotism and respect for the former
actorPresident?Hello again, Jane…
I was talking with my lady last night about Ronald Reagan. She asked me if I was proud of the fact that I voted against Mr. Reagan? Twice for guv when we lived in Sacramento, and twice for prez. I acknowledged I was very proud of those votes. She advised me… she was too. Lord, I love this woman.
This is the kind of garbage that makes me detest Obama. Prior to listening, I merely disliked him.
My first vote was for Jimmy Carter. I have always detested Raygun (raised in Ca.). I always remind his fans of the number of cabinet members of his (Raygun) that were indicted. They hate that.
Here’s the AP story: Siljander news.
He apparently also has Moony connections.
Ronald Reagan was also big on family values despite having a very dysfunctional family of his own. He played up to the religious Right but seldom if ever went to church. A fiscal conservative he quadrupled the national debt. A believer in a stand tall and tough foreign policy, his invasion of Grenada played like a bad comedy and after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut he withdrew so fast the dust didn’t have time to settle. The Great Communicator, he was an empty suit who read whatever his handlers placed in front of him. His trickle down economics consisted mainly in the rich pissing on the middle class.
I guess the part I’m missing here is what halo did he have to let slip?
And without intending irony, former GOP Virginia governor Gilmore wrote an op-ed at the time declaring that the airport should be renamed to commemorate the fact that Reagan had devolved control of the airport to local authorities, ignoring the fact that the name change was being forced on those local authorities by the federal government.
Jimmy Carter attempted to make the US live up to its professed ideals.
Reagan made people feel that it was OK to hate others.
Reagan offered the easy path and folks took it.
As a reult of his supposed inattentiveness, Reagan allowed a secret self-funding cabal to form within his administration that pursued a foreign policy that was contrary to the stated and sanctioned foreign policy of this nation.
Ronald Reagan also launched an incredible decade of greed, junkbonds, and ehtic mayhem that made portions of the middle class fall into poverty. He also inaugurated the Repug flight from reality, when he would cite movie scenes as his memory of events. He did give fine speeches, however, which he honed from the days of his radio show before he became governor of CA.
He went to the Waffen SS cemetery at Bitburg to reconcile the wounded
feelings of the Nazis just like Philadelphia MS. A Republican op told me
candidly once “We’ll never get the Nazis out of the Party, they are just
too entrenched.” Reagan was a union busting thug, bigot, you name it.
He went to the Waffen SS cemetery at Bitburg to reconcile the wounded
feelings of the Nazis just like Philadelphia MS. A Republican op told me
candidly once “We’ll never get the Nazis out of the Party, they are just
too entrenched.” Reagan was a union busting thug, bigot, you name it.
This on the blog where we were supposed to “give . . .respect because . . .is a candidate for the presidency”?
Mine, too! A proud, if unsuccessful, start.
Ronald Reagan’s Sleepy Hollow…
Don’t neglect the hypocracy. For example funding terrorists to murderously overthrow democratically elected governments using a money ring created by selling arms to our enemies.
Training OBL.
I do not recall while under oath starting in the 50’s or 60’s.
And the fact the he was (if not in spirit) the head of the Screen Actors Guild - and then goes on to bust unions. Not only that he was really working for MGM or whatever signing secret deals with them.
Lastly fighting against progress and then having his wife change to support stem cell research when….when he needed it (theoretically).
Putting on a Cowboy hat and boots and playing at wild wild west to declare a national emergency over Nicaragua was pretty funny as well.
What does the clip above say that spawned this thread?
Yeah, well, my first Presidential vote was cast for George McGovern.
Having respect for the office of the President of the United States of America is one thing.
Having a shred of respect for certain men who have held that office, or aspire to holding that office is quite another matter.
I respect the office.
I detest the President.
Same here.
and the office of “candidate”?
Thank you, Jane. Having been there and watched it happen, I find it repugnant that the man could not only be lionized on the Right, but even by some on the Left. George W. Bush is the result of the Reagan doctrine, not an aberration. Let us never forget that.
Ronald Reagan’s legacy — he made it safe to Hate again.
It was largly understood in Sacramento that the power behind the throne during the Reagan years was Nancy, his wife. Reagan was a Democrat, before he married Nancy, who was a very conservative Goldwater girl from Arizona.
And pardons for prez crimes, starting with Ford, allowed Raygun’s halo to be untarnished. And now the same thing will happen with W.
Mine was Johnson.
If you look into Reagan’s actions with respect to MCA and SAG you will discover a highly corrupt individual
I didn’t think it was possible to dislike a president more than Ronald Reagan, until George W. Bush came along. What is Obama thinking?
BAC
Why does all that sound familiar?
That should be a reply to kiddo @ 40.
What do you think of when you hear the words William French Smith and Edwin Meese?
Attorney Generals that only look good when compared to Alberto Gonzales.
Respect is earned in the civilian world, these people have no rank
before or after election.
“When you’ve seen one Redwood you’ve seen ‘em all”. ‘I wish that anti-Viet Nam war protestor would lay down in front of my car’. “Trees pollute”.
Way O/T: I cannot get back to the Beck thread; just lets me sign in here. I wanted to respond to a question about my 60% statement. Sorry, I had gone to work. You may be right, and right now, I do not remember. If you remember pretty clearly, I probably misspoke/mistyped. (I’ll try to find our what’s wrong with my sign-in.)
And all Raygun’s mucking about in Latin America was a wet test for what W’s doing in the ME now. Here the reference: Empire’s Workshop—Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism by Greg Grandin
Catsup is a vegetable.
My dad used to tell people at work a bit of RayGun truth and that they were voting against themselves…they never caught on until years later. Nearly to a person they all said: Damn you were right!
I only pray now that any more pension and health is not taken from them, and not to serious consequences for literally shoveling asbestos.
Ronald Reagan was not in favor of free-speech. He and I differed on this.
” We want Clarity, Optimism” We want Welfare moms from Chicago as Scapegoats and Crackheads to excuse the GOP’s hate/fear of African Americans.
The penalties for crack a drug used more by African Americans were way higher than the penalty for coke a drug used by Whites.
Obama are you aware that this difference led to 1 out of 10 African Americans going to jail?
Funny how with Meth a drug used by Whites the GOP and media are not going crazy to punish these people.
If I understand Barack, and I think I do, he was commenting on how Raygun was elected, the promises he made. Not how he ruled once installed.
I had forgotten that. ;0)
Oh, and I have it from a conservative authority that RayGun only pulled out of Beruit because of liberal pansies pressuring him - what a loser.
Yet another reason I say not “Obama Oh-Eight”, but rather “Obama? Oh, Wait” I can’t believe that Obama was actually praising St. Ronnie the man who as Jane correctly points out began his run in Philadelphia, Mississippi with Karl Rove mentor, Lee Atwater by his side.
Reagan was easily the most likable personification of fascism in American history until Beloved Leader came along, and fooled the sheeple by having Rove make the “average” white guy think he’d pop around with a sack of brots and a six of Bud.
One of the great PR jobs of all time is to revise Reagan. This meat puppet was actually controlled by the Baker/Meese/Regan cabal. Uncanny the similarity of the current cabal; a useless prick fronting a monstrous group of traitors.
This is what I meant in my 27:
In 1985, Reagan visited a German military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany to lay a wreath with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, but it was found that the cemetery held the graves of 49 members of the Waffen-SS. In advance of the visit, many prominent U.S. government officials, veterans, Jewish leaders, Holocaust survivors, 95 Republican and 215 Democratic members of Congress, even First Lady Nancy Reagan protested and called on Reagan to cancel the visit,[110] but the president argued that it would be wrong to back down on a promise he had made to Chancellor Kohl. Reagan issued a statement that called the Nazi soldiers buried in that cemetery “victims” and some say equated them with victims of the Holocaust, but Pat Buchanan, Director of Communications under Reagan, argues: “President Reagan never equated SS troops and camp victims. He equated the teenage boys Hitler put in uniform and sent to certain death at war’s end with concentration camp victims.”[111] In the end, Reagan attended the ceremony where two military generals laid the wreath, as was customary.[112] In 1983, he told prominent Jews — notably Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel, Simon Wiesenthal, and Rabbi Marvin Hier of Los Angeles — of his personal experience vis-à-vis the Holocaust, saying “I was there,” and that that he had assisted at the liberation of Nazi death camps. He was in a film unit in Hollywood that processed raw footage it received from Europe for newsreels, but was not in Europe during the war.[
My bold.
If it hasn’t been mentioned already, this is how Froomkin begins today:
So is ketchup. And since RR was such a firm believer in choice, the school cafeteria would let you choose which of those two veggies you wanted on your french fries.
Why is Obama trying to win over Reagen voters we already have 70%? The 30%ers who still love Reagen will never like him no matter how much he tries to such up.
On the other hand we hate the weakness of appealing to evil rather than fighting it.
John Edwards might be the only fighter we got.
Listen again & read Jane’s critique.
I know about the civil rights movement and Philadelphia, MS (and the daring reference to it in the original 1967 In the Heat of the Night), but Ronald who? I thought Reagan was a B-grade movie actor who presided over the demise of public service and responsible government. I hadn’t realized he’d become a demi-god. Are we now to say, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ronald?
Ron was Senile and getting worse but the MSM never called him on it.
Reagan made good use of his 4-F Captaincy in the Air Corps to get luv from the military in the 80’s. He was very deferential in public to the brass, and they loved him for it. I remember a quote of his, “When four stars talks to two bars (a captain) two bars listens”. God they ate that up like groveling sycophants.
Oh, and McDonalds employees “manufacture” hamburgers so are manufacturing jobs.
No, he’s just referred to by Rs (with reverence) and Ds (with sarcasm) as St Ronnie. He hasn’t quite made it into the Holy Trinity quite yet.
At least Reagan knew how to bully those too helpless to defend themselves. Remember Grenada (”Operation Urgent Fury”)? George W. Bush did not learn this lesson (Iraq) from his self-professed hero, Ronnie.
Today Tweety would be calling for the head of any Democrat who made that mistake. But Its Ok If Your A Republican seems to be his mantra.
Re:
Hmmm, my reaction was the opposite. I thought that Obama’s saccharine and innocuous paean to Reagan was perfectly in keeping with the themes of optimism and the audacity of hope of his campaign. Nothing jarring about the message, which is one of anti-fear-mongering which I approve of. I’m not really troubled by the lack of content in much of Obama’s pronouncements. He’s cleverly offering the citizenry the opportunity to paint their own political canvas and install Obama front and center. It’s a reasonable way to run a campaign.
Let’s consider the opposite tack for a moment. Ronald Reagan, whether we here at FDL like him or not is one of the most revered politicians in recent memory. To what end would Obama come out and attack Reagan? That would serve no political purpose whatsoever.
I’m sensing here a bit of overreach to read too much into the time-filling homage that Obama was offering up in the video provided. This is the first and only time I’ve heard Obama mention Reagan. Clearly this isn’t a main thrust of Obama’s campaign. Why make a mountain of a molehill?
For more substance, I liked this seven minute interview with one of Obama’s key staffers. This woman gave me a lot of confidence that Obama has surrounded himself with competent and intelligent staffers.
Barack Obama’s foreign policy
Senior Advisor Susan Rice outlines Obama’s “21st century approach” to foreign policy view
If it had been up to the republican congress in the 90s they would have named anything that did not move in the District of Columbia after St. Ronnie. Bad enough you have to fly into Reagan National now. They wanted him on coins, bills, buildings ad nauseum. I shudder to think what Junior will get named after him…might I suggest a landfill?
Oh man. First the SchWartzenegger wet kiss, and now this. I really want to like Obama, but it’s getting increasingly difficult. If he really feels this way…blech. If he’s following some sort of communication plan they have, he’s got to come back closer to the ranch, or he’s gonna lose more people than he gains by playing the Republican card.
Obviously the Republicans are missing the boat. They need a really catchy slogan. Something along the lines of “I support a bottle of ketchup in every home”.
The Raygun thing makes about as much sense as bragging about the LV Reviewjournal endorsement.
One of the reasons why Obama (or Edwards, or Clinton) should reach out to get Reagon voters at least not hate them, is that if the Dems want to do anything serious after the election, we are going to need ALOT of people across the spectrum on board to counter big industry (pharma etc.). One of the main problems with Bill Clinton is that the Rethugs came to be so furious with him (was it Carville’s actions in part) that they impeded him and the Dems at every step. This is also part of the problem with Hillary- she thinks only in terms of us/them.
“Experts agree: Meese is a pig!”
(Excellent graffiti campaign in DC during his tenure.)
aka pandering
You’re right. We could do worse. But it is not actively good.
agree largely with you.
RayDuray January 16th, 2008 at 12:33 pm 74
In response to eCAHNomics @ 20
Re:
This is the kind of garbage that makes me detest Obama. Prior to listening, I merely disliked him.
Hmmm, my reaction was the opposite. I thought that Obama’s saccharine and innocuous paean to Reagan was perfectly in keeping with the themes of optimism and the audacity of hope of his campaign.
–
But you would have to say what America needs right now is likely not cognative dissonance, no? If he wants to draw parallels that could be problematic (RayGun said plenty of nice things to get elected - and I will to. He united the country…with blindness to their own ruin, etc).
Well, one thing to be said in Reagan’s favor perhaps, is that this nitwit wanted only to blow up a small island. Lieberman and Bush are working to blow up the Middle East.
Re:
He was also a snitch at that time, turning in purported Communist sympathizers to the FBI while he served as President of SAG.
The only part of the spectrum that will counter the corportocracy is on the left. Trying to get the near right in the big tent is actively contrary to the goal. They’ll get in the way at every opportunity.
Yeah, I’m just so glad they didn’t manage to push through putting Reagan on the twenty-dollar bill. Though the move to put him on the dime (specifically to replace FDR) says a lot more about their true motives.
I worry if Obama becomes president, he will trust republicans and become a betrayed, frustrated president paralyzed by false promises and failed alliances. His optimism that he can bring the two sides together is noble but I fear danger because the GOP will use it to try to bring him down.
Before the Reagan crowd, anyone using the word “entrepreneur” in Texas risked getting the crap beat out of them. Suddenly, the all wanted to be one and the only thing holding them back was the government and leeches at the public trough.
Oh, yeah, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate flip-flopper. Was a Dem; became a Rethug. Was a union man; became union buster.
But didn’t he have a Democratic Congress? Many of them would now be called Blue Dogs or Bush Dogs, but at least in name, they were Dems. It may be time to assert a brand, but even with a Dem in the WH, could the Democratic party survive a purge of sorts of the Blue Dogs?
I don’t think it’s noble - I think it’s wimpy. Sorry
If Obama becomes prez, he’ll appoint a Supreme who will vote with the majority in the interest of bipartisanship.
Also from Froomkin:
If he was engaged there would be no need to come back.
Re:
The documentary “The Last Mogul” has a surprising amount of scurrilous information about Reagan’s unique relationship with Lew Wasserman. Unsavory, to say the least.
I couldn’t vote until 16 months after I came home from the Nam.
Agreed. They have hated FDR ever since he escorted Hoover from the inaugural platform.
The parallels between that era and this are becoming eerily more similar every day…
Hi all-
Remember, also, for the ultimate blech factor, there was a movement in the early ’90’s to put Reagan on Mt. Rushmore.
It is to retch.
Wasn’t Reagan at one time prez of the Screen Actors Guild? It’s all so bizarre.
Hmm, I’m not sure if I agree with that. Republican politicians will certainly get in the way at every opportunity. But considering the big shift in party identification over the past few years, I think it’s possible there are more Republican voters who can still be brought back to the light. I don’t have any problem with reaching out to them, as long as it isn’t done using right-wing talking points that undermine our objectives.
Right. Used to be biddnessman. Texas has gone French since Texas Monthly
and women at A&M. Government contracts are the only free enterprise the
conservatives are good at, sole source no-bid, what an expensive joke.
I disagree VERY much with this! He has a far more liberal voting record than Hillary, and, as I recall Edwards too. Edwards, remember, voted for the bankrupcy bill, among many other things that he should regret now.
Actually it was during the Reagan admin that the term “Blue Dog” was first coined, to describe the Dems from the south who bucked Tip O’Neill and backed a lot of Reagan’s programs in defiance of the rest of the majority. IIRC, Phil Gramm was one of the ring leaders who went on to become an R and ran for President himself as an R.
The big shift in voter identification has been because the Ds have better policies (as ineffective as they are at executing them). No need to pander if that continues to be the case.
Re:
That Ronald Reagan is the most popular President in history, according to recent polls.
If you don’t regret something you haven’t lived.
Ooops. Forgot the snark alert.
You missed my point - which was, you don’t want to go around antagonize everyone over every thing. On the BIG matters you stand your ground, but finding ways to get along more generally is smart - and it is where the US people are at now.
Edwards said that was a big mistake on his part during the debate last night.
How many Reagans does it take to screw in a light bulb? Ronnie was fond of homilies. Wasn’t he?
RAYGUN= first General Electric highly paid PATSY
Maybe he can get engaged to Condi while he’s there, and they can both live there. Then he won’t have to come back home to Laura. He also won’t have to come back home to lead the country. But I guess that would leave things to…Darth Cheney! And you think things are bad now. Just wait.
Yeah, you had to be 21. I was in a college Air Force ROTC training camp in August,1964, when Johnson made the first big committment of troops and bombing of North Vietnam. I was married with one child when I went on active duty and served from 1965 to 1969.
I actually cast my first vote at 17. In Kentucky, you could vote in the primary at 17 if you were 18 before the general election in November. At the time, KY and Georgia were the only states with the 18 year old vote. And yes, we could vote in the President’s race.
Decide which hill you are willing to die on.