The great Ronald Reagan!

[txprog]

I am a bit fascinated with this guy. Well, maybe not with the guy himself, but the myth and the reality. As much as the right needs their bogey men, they also need their heros. With slim pickings, it makes sense that they hold this turd in such high regards. It has to be SOMEBODY, so the cat that defeated the commies and rescued not just our economy but our entire way of life is the guy. Of course, reality need not apply to any of this. But the alternate reality they have created about this guy is simply amazing. Truly, terms like worship and mythic proportions indeed apply.

I think it important to understand why this guy and his administration were SO bad, how they set the table for what is going on now; and we must be able to readily make that case to most anyone who would tell us how wonderful he was. Over the years, I have printed out a number of articles that easliy debunk the myth of his greatness, but for some reason I am just now reading them.

His years, in a word, disaster. Wrong on virtually everything. Corruption, cronyism, death and destuction abroad, ecomonic dislocation at home. An alienated and ignorant President not quite playing with a full deck. A media either reluctant or unable to report the real story. Sounds kind of familiar.....

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Reagan = Deregulation = Disaster.

[TwilightZone]

2. He made it standard procedure to borrow, borrow, borrow.

He sold the Republicans on deficit spending, and now it's their basis for everything. We'll be paying for Bush's version of Reaganomics for decades.

[jgraz]

3. He also introduced the era of presidents who are too stupid to wipe their own ass

[bryant69]

4. Well the problem with doing this kind of analysis on DU

is you would have to identify his strengths; those things that made his administration work (as much as it did) and those things that keep in him high regard among both Republicans, but also in our national memory.

And DU is constitutionally unable to acknowledge any positives about Reagan.

So such analysis is unlikely to succeed.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Kingshakabobo]

8. National memory = repig talking points and the media's regurgitation of said talking points.

Perhaps you can enlighten us with a couple positive things about Reagan?

[bryant69]

11. I'm sorry; I'm not in the mood to get flamed

Or accused of being a Reagan supporter.

I'm already pissed off enough.

Bryant

[indepat]

10. Too many positives come to mind, but possibly the greatest of these was the short time-frame in whic...

the Gipper's tax and fiscal policies doubled the national debt while at the same time much further concentrating the nation's wealth among a relatively precious few.

[Kingshakabobo]

5. What bothers me the most is the right's desire to plaster his name on.....

.......a brazillion buildings, bridges and roads. I suppose once WE are back in power, we should re-name everything after one of OUR people? I think the repigs would prefer a system like the old communist Russians and Chinese, where the party in power scrubs the public record of the previous leaders.

[Poiuyt]

13. There was even talk of carving his face on Mt Rushmore

One man has taken upon himself the goal of having at least one building named after Reagan in every county in the country.

[Devlzown]

6. He's their FDR.

They've been looking for one ever since Hoover and Reagan is the best they can do.

[SpiralHawk]

7. "My occultism is more powerful that Ronnie's Occultism." - Commander AWOL

"All Ronnie Reagan had going for him was a good astrologer. I've got the whole stinkin Skull & Boner Occult Cabal -- and the Christofascist republicon Homelanders just lap this up, as if somehow it made me the Second Coming of Jesus, or whatever. Smirk, smirk, smirk. What a pack of suckers the Homelanders are."

- Commander AWOL, Uber Hero of the Republicon Skull & Boner Occult Brigade of Chickenhawks

[lonestarnot]

9. Hmmmf. No longer looking for Easter Eggs.

Great ee hunter.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. Republicans have a knack for picking a front man for their confidence games.

Harding, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.