Reagan vs Bush

[rpannier]

I know Reagan is not very popular here, I never voted for him. But, one thing I have to give him credit for, he seemed to be running his administration for the most part and his ultra-conservative supporters jumped onto his bandwagon. With shrubbie, I don't think he runs a thing. And he seems to be following the dictates of his "supporters."
Maybe that's why reagan was able to to recognize his mistake in Lebanon and shrubbie cannot admit to even one of his many screw ups.

[JaySherman]

1. Get ready.

That's gonna get you flamed.

Actually, there is evidence that Reagan was basically a vegetable his last two years in office, and Bush 41 basically ran the whole show.

[rpannier]

2. Even If that were True...

The agenda was set by the White House. For the first six years and I think for all eight years, reagan did set the bulk of the agenda. even if it was only for 6 years, it still means he controlled his agenda for most of it and people from the outside did not call the shots. On the O' FRanken Factor, the had a general from the Reagan admin who said that when rummy approached reagan in 1987, to hurry the star wars program into operation reagan told him, "No. Because it won't work."

[Pinko Commie]

3. Since Nixon

Republican administrations have been run entirely by the NSC. The president is always an empty suit, some likeable airhead meant to provide entertainment for the American people, so we can all roll over and go back to sleep.

Reagan was no different. HW was no different. Gomer is no different.

[rpannier]

5. You're gonna have to get facts to back that up

I follow politics very closely and have for 25 years. I'm not sure I buy that premise. I do not buy that the NSC devised the environmental and labor policies. Especially since nixo's and reagan's environ policies were so very different.

[Pinko Commie]

8. As have I

First of all, I'm never gonna have the facts on that, unless I interview all the administrations, assuming they will admit it.

Secondly, my comment "Since Nixon" was meant to mean "After Nixon". Nixon was the last strong Republican president. After that, it's all been increasingly the NSC that runs things.

EDIT: In fact, one could almost say this is true because of the experience with Nixon.

[rpannier]

16. My Apologies

I misread your statement. Thank you for pointing it out to me and I apologise.

[Pinko Commie]

20. No need to apologize

I wasn't clear in what I said.

[MichaelHarris]

4. Ummmm

Published on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)
Ollie North Visit a Reminder of Lies, Scandal under Reagan
by Donna Vukelich

"We should not forget that North ran a bizarre series of operations out of the Reagan White House that involved the attempted subversion of the U.S. Constitution and total disregard for legality and the democratic process"

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0113-03.htm

"These diseased minds also thought Reagan made the country a better place to live in, when in fact he compromised the national character in ways that were unprecedented. For one, he perverted of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's tactic of economic stimulation by deficit spending. Reaganomics was no more than a pyramid scheme. Conservatives engaged in the bald-faced lie that they stood for lower taxes when the reality is that Reagan signed the biggest tax increase ever in U.S. History. Bush Sr. signed what was then the second biggest in violation of his "No New Taxes" campaign pledge."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/05/11_reagan.html

"He also did much to turn back civil-rights legislation in order to favor white-owned big businesses and split up the poor working class to keep it at odds with itself in very polarized factions. Race relations were set back so dramatically that we're still trying make amends for it more than a decade later."

Oh yeah who can forget, "trees cause more pollution than cars" reagan was a complete blithering idiot, no matter who pulled his strings

[rpannier]

6. I'm not saying reagan was a winner

my premise which seems to be getting lost in this dicussion is, "Reagan was able to admit his mistakes in lebanon and acknowledge it. I believe this was because Reagan's supporters jumped on his bandwagon. They followed him. shrubbie is not able to admit his mistakes, which are numerous because he is not leading anything. he is following.

[MichaelHarris]

7. Yeah

he admitted by saying, "I don't remember" during the investigation. At least Bill had the sense to deny a blowjob.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/WarCrimes_Reagan_iF.html

[Pinko Commie]

9. It's a great thing when a president...

can admit a mistake. But I don't think that means he was in any more control than Bush. Mistakes are not usually admitted because its the right thing to do. They are usually admitted for political reasons. Reagan was just doing what his handlers told him.

[MichaelHarris]

10. Does this

thread feel like a "drive by" to anyone but me?

[gonefishing]

11. You know what they say about history!

George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

George Wilhelm Hegel:
What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles.

Goethe:
Patriotism ruins history.

E. L. Doctorow:
History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

Mark Twain:
A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.

Walt Whitman:
Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books.

Winston Churchill:
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

Jane Haddam:
People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.

Adrienne Rich:
False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news

Etienne Gilson:
History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.

[OpSomBlood]

17. You forgot the most important quote about history:

George W. Bush:
"Who cares about history, we'll all be dead."

[gonefishing]

12. BTW: That was a great post!

[MichaelHarris]

13. LOL

mine? I was pissed. Anytime I see someone trying to drum up kudos for reagan I get a little "taxi driver" on them.

[Dees]

14. I'm not sure I'm buying Ray-gun calling the shots

knowing the influence that Joe Coors and the neo fascist Heritage boys had on old Dutch. I suspect that Gip was mouthing the words but decision making for B movie boy seems a stretch. One way or the other the Reagan admin stunk from top to bottom.

[pretzel4gore]

15. public service...

the repubs obnoxiously denounce any concept of public service, going so far as maggot thatcher's 'there's no sich thang as society' (just a network of busybodies looking out for no. 1) or reagan's 'government is the problem, not solution': yet they expend vast sums to either control or influence public policy through top offices.....
then they turn around and squander public wealth on purpose (did reagan once say 'my job is to bankrupt the fed gov so it can never do nothing(?))
the total lack of consideration for the 'public interest' and the ability of psych ops programs to influence the herd to hate the very idea of 'civil rights' or decent wages/liberalism etc says bush is a symptom of a very serious problem US society ignore. in sinclair lewis's Babbitt some prescient scholar said in the afterward that the 'contradiction' that was rooted in the US system, and depicted somewhat in 'babbitt' (who's basically an honest well meaning man who goes along with all sorts of social compromising and bullying until he's one of them) suggests that unless the men who run the nation continue to deal with it, control it (the rightwing) america is headed for catastrophe.
that was published in 1960....

[No2W2004]

18. Regan

"Poor dear, he has nothing between his ears." Maggie Thatcher

Ronnie looked presidential and acted presidential. That's about it. Shrub can't even do that right.

[kodi]

19. reagan didn't do more damage only because dems held congress

.