I apologize to the people who predicted this (Reagan)

[Beatrix]

Although I never directly criticized people here for the Reagan predictions I had thought a year or so ago that all the people saying he was "on ice" and ready to go for 2004 were a little paranoid.

After seeing that the media coverage as intense as it was 24 hours ago - complete with whoring and comparing to Bush - I must admit I was totally wrong. I literally thought that Reagan would get a few hours (at MOST) news coverage when it happened, and that there would be no organized effort underway to increase Bush's poll numbers as a result of it. I was completely wrong. The media blitz is greater than I would have imagined.

Makes me wonder if the Osama captured the week before the election people might be on to something.

on edit: I should clarify I am not saying he was literally "on ice". But you get the point.

[fla nocount]

1. Accepted n/t

[jjmalonejr]

2. It was not hard to predict that Reagan would die in 2004...

...but he wasn't "on ice" for God's sake!

Osama's not "on ice" either. That doesn't mean that he won't be captured, he just might. But I highly doubt it. And the idea that he's in a cell waiting for the right time to be trotted out is just dumb.

Bush's approval is in free-fall...if they had Osama, they'd serve him up ASAP.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. Can you state without any hesitation that Saddam wasn't locked away...

...until the proper moment to drag him out of that hole?

[jjmalonejr]

7. From what I've read...

...there is reason to believe that Saddam was captured by the Kurds and left with a bow for Coalition forces to find.

I don't have reason to believe that he was held "on ice" until the politically opportune moment, though.

It's not the same thing.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. Oh, right. Whatever you say.

[jjmalonejr]

22. Why react to me like that?

I'm willing to listen to what you have to say, I'm not trying to shut you down.

You asked me if I could state without any hesitation that Saddam wasn't locked away until the proper moment to drag him out of that hole. I just told you that I couldn't say it without hesitation.

Look, I don't claim to have any special knowledge, I'm just telling you what I believe. Neither one of us knows for sure.

[VolcanoJen]

11. Well, Bin Laden is a helluva lot more elusive than Saddam.

I was actually surprised it took so damned long to find Saddam, really. It shouldn't have been that tricky.

Bin Laden's another story. He lives and operates within a secretive vacuum; he has the support of many, who reside in many different countries; if he's already "on ice" and is trotted out before the election, it won't hold water, because Bin Laden won't play ball.

My take, anyhow.

[jjmalonejr]

23. I was surprised how long it took to find Saddam, too.

I agree that Bin Laden's MUCH tougher. If they'd caught him by now, they'd be stinking up the place with their gloating as quickly as they could.

[fla nocount]

12. Do you know that it was him?

He had more doubles than Raygun or Hitler. Why would the thugs reneg on the deal? Saddam held up his end and laid down. Everyone knows that if you get a rep for not honoring your deals, pretty soon no one will play with you. Why assume that the gospel, according to Bill O Really, is correct and something that we should be basing our concepts and beliefs upon?

Like Hinckley, Osama's bin forgotten, Saddam too.......they made a deal, they did their job and the prols have a story they can conjugate as they ruminate....burp.

[jjmalonejr]

25. No, you're right, I don't KNOW that it's actually Saddam

But I believe it is. I think Saddam's ego is too huge to just slink off and disappear. Al Jazeera would be getting videotapes and audiotapes of Saddam on a regular basis if he were still alive. He wouldn't be able to stand the image of him trapped like a rat in a hole enduring.

[fla nocount]

26. I'm small potatoes compared to Saddam,

But if I could buy my exit from this life and past....I would give it serious thought

[jjmalonejr]

27. No doubt it's possible to cut a deal with anyone...

...but why bother when catching him is likely? It seemed assured that Saddam's days were numbered. He had too many enemies in Iraq to evade capture forever.

When you've got him, you've got him. I don't think he had anything to bargain with.

[fla nocount]

29. Because he's been a member

of the "family" since or before Iran-Contra. He's been a "good boy." Saddam walked........that's my opinion, as delusionary as it seems. You don't shit in the nest or your own mess kit, neither do you spit into the wind.

Prescott Bush was Nazi Germany's banker and broker.....fact.

Saddam/Osama are soldiers..............opinion.

Support the troops or they will turn on you....fact.

[jjmalonejr]

30. So, the first Gulf War was just a minor family squabble?

The War in Iraq now is just a show and Saddam's bizarre combination of compliance and definace beforehand was all just a bunch of theater?

Why wouldn't he just capitulate and be removed if he's such a good boy?

[fla nocount]

31. He did...

Where were you?

Turn off the tube dude.......and think. The only WMD's were the ones we sold him with Rumfelds' classic hand shake in the late 80's(do your own Google). What he did with them and who he sold them to is the question and that's what makes him a bad boy.

The real question here is will World Energy be traded in Dollars or Euros. Everything else comes under the heading of the last 800 years since the concept of compound interest was conceived. This might be my last post re: this subject. I can't decide if you're baiting or just plain ignorant. Regardless, have a nice life, your soul and life's work is as important as anybody's.

[havocmom]

3. If he was really on ice, 'twas Nancy who thawed him out at this time

rather than closer to the election. She has no love of the BFEE and probably has many reasons to hate them.

[leesa]

4. Makes you wonder who, or 'what' is on ice for next week!

[VolcanoJen]

15. I have a feeling John Kerry's the one who has something "on ice."

I just have this hunch that Kerry will emerge from his self-imposed campaign hiatus, no earlier than a week from Monday, to announce to an anxious world that he has selected his Veep.

It's our turn to unload a surprise, don't ya think?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. OMG. Kerry would be accused of raining on their parade

He would postpone it if he had intended it for next week
The poltical flak he'd get would not be worth it- and also- why compete?

[VolcanoJen]

20. Well, of course they'll whine about it. But...

... I think it's fair to take the gloves off a week from tomorrow. By then, we'll have seen the state funeral, and we'll have endured another long weekend of Reagan nostalgia.

Come Monday, June 14, it's time to get back to the business of electing a new President. The Republicans would whine about Kerry regardless... but I don't think he should let their whimpering cries hold him back.

Just before the Reagan death, there was all sorts of buzzing that Kerry had made his decision. He backed away from the speculation, but he was being rather coy, which makes me think he's made the decision, or he's close. He might very well have intended to announce it tomorrow... now he'll just have to wait till next week.

Again... just my silly speculation here. :D

[Jose Diablo]

28. Isn't Edwards at a Bilderberg meeting this week? n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Okay...here's another guess: 1 to 2 point "bounce" at the most...

...people are on to the FratBoy Fuhrer and his merry little band of NeoCons...he gets NO SLACK between now and November.

[jjmalonejr]

8. Agreed that the bounce will be small and short in duration.

If anything, Kerry might benefit more in the long run.

Today's election is similar to 1980. The people were losing confidence in America and the President. Reagan made them feel proud to be Americans again. Kerry can do the same.

Exploiting people's fears is not the same thing as boosting people's confidence.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. His death is consistent with his age, his disease and the fact

that he contracted fatal pneumonia. If this were really orchestrated by the Bushies, it would have occurred closer to the election when the bump would have mattered. It doesn't.

Sonny Bono's death was covered round the clock, Wellstone was covered massively and John Jr. preempted most of TV for several days as did Princess Diana.

Reagan going before the convention does nothing for Bush.

[salin]

13. and we have heard from DUers who are part of the news establishment

that there have been preparations for the past year or so to be ready for whenever the time was right (so they wouldn't be scrambling.)

So yes, in a sense, there is staging - but more because there was plenty of advanced warning - age, the advancement of his illness, etc.

I think this coverage hurts bush with swing voters who might still harbor an adherence to the Reagan myth but are growing disenchanted with bush. Bush is pretty diminuitive - now put him back to back with a human myth (whose myth has been pumped since mid way through Poppy's term)... makes junior look even more diminuitive. While this might strengthen the loyalty among the die-hard bushfans (but their loyalty is already a lock) - I think it hurts him with swing voters.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. Especially since recent news casts him as more Nixonian

[salin]

18. True... folks should also remember the lionization doesn't always hold

I mentioned elsewhere how odd the tone was at the time of Nixon's death. He was rehabilitated. Remembered (they said) as a great statesman (big cite of opening relations with China). On and on it went about Nixon the great statesman. Mere footnotes per his forced resignation (doubt with Clinton that the impeachment will be treated as a mere footnote).

But here we are, about ten years later... and folks are NOT remembering Nixon as a great elder statesman. The rehabilitation just didn't stick. If it had - the comparisons with junior wouldn't be made as there is NO disputing that junior is about the least statesmanlike president in the past century (if not in history.)

[Yupster]

10. You think this was an opportune time?

Don't you think if they had Reagan on ice they would have saved him for a day before the Democratic convention for heaven's sake. Then the three days of the convention coverage would be what this or that Democrat has nice to say about Reagan.

Or how about at the beginning of the Republican convention so all the news could be about how Reagan was so much loved that today all America is Republican.

These are the dog days of summer. People are on vacation, or at the pool. This would hardly be the time Bush would have chosen for Reagan to die, especially with him out of the country.

[Beatrix]

16. Who knows?

If you listen to some people there will be a series of events leading up to the election.

Today Reagan. Two months from now Al Qaeda number 2. Two months later thrwarted (due to Bush effort) terrorist attack. A week before the election Osama.

I personally don't think it will work out like that, but I guess you never know.

[Cleita]

19. My stepdaughter's mother died of complications from

Alzheimer's. I spoke to her today about it and she swears Reagan was kept alive by artificial means. She also said it would have been more humane to let him die when he got to the point where he had "gone to another place" as Nancy Reagan once stated and that event would have happened several years past.

I did what I could to help her care for her mother when she was brought home to die under hospice care. It took about two weeks for her to expire, but trust me she was a body, still breathing, whose essence had departed awhile ago. She could no longer eat or drink and was given an saline solution IV with increasing doses of morphine until she passed.

The question that remains is why did Nancy keep him alive by artificial means, if her intention was not to help Bush in the reelection? Even though she openly disliked the Bushes and didn't like Bush's policy on stem cell research, she certainly knows that if Bush is defeated in November, Reagan's legacy will go with him and I believe this is more important to her than any dislike she may have of Bush.

Maybe the pneumonia sent him on his way sooner than they would have liked, but the questions still remain open.

[Pepperbelly]

24. Let them POUND it into the ground ...

The amount of saccharine nostalgia that people can take is limited. The whores do not realize this, believing as many of the greedier types do, that more is better when of course, it is not. Let it go 24/7 for a month and people will be so sick of it that they'll turn green when they think of it.