Why is Reagan considered a good president? I started reading Firewall

[liveoaktx]

the other day in order to get a better understanding of just what happened in the Iran/Contra affair. I haven't read very far yet but already have seen that Reagan was in danger of being impeached himself, he broke the law, he KNEW he was breaking the law (despite pleading ignorance), etc.

I also vaguely remember that people made fun of him for reading 3x5 cards and falling asleep in meetings.

So what happened that elevated him? He was a crook.

[DS1]

1. He was just another right-wing shitbag

I've been asking the same question you just asked.

[bettyellen]

22. because the recession ended when he became president

he unfairly became associated with the nation's prosperity.

[DS1]

28. I disagree

Mostly because wingers use that argument against Clinton

The nation's prosperity in Reagan's terms was due to giving billions to defense companies who never had to actually deliver anything useful. Bush is trying the same thing, but our guys are getting killed/blown to pieces because now the defense hardware is actually being used and it's failing us left and right. The tank I used to drive is made of aluminum. It still is.

[bettyellen]

29. you have a tank? cool!

i didn't say he actually made the nation prosperous, but i think people felt he did. he took advantage of that perception. unemployment and gas prices were insane before he got in, there was gas rationing. people (okay, me and my friends) used to syphon gas because they wanted to spend their money on beer and dope... err, never mind.

[DS1]

30. Used to, and it floated, which I acknowledge was part of the reason

why it was made of aluminum instead of steel. But still, that thing was a total bullet sponge. I feel for the guys who have to ride around in it in Iraq. Desert/Urban warfare is the LAST thing it was designed to do. Like in the turret, unlike modern tanks with aiming systems, you have a gun periscope, a handle to make both the grenade launcher and machine gun move up and down, and you have a handle to make both of them go left and right.

The problems are

A) You don't want them to move together because they both require VERY different trajectories
B) It's a fucking bitch to look in the sight and move those things
C) It's even harder while moving on terrain
D) They were meant to make it from ship to shore and get blown up, and that's it
E) They're incredibly hot inside, basically solar powered ovens
F) Even with the new armor, anything above a .308 will put holes in it, and the people inside
G) They have ZERO chemical weapons defense, better bring your gas mask because these hogs aren't filtering it for you

shit, I could go on and on

[bettyellen]

31. that's almost as bad as being fourteen and tasting like gasoline

pink champale and choclate buddah. :P

[DS1]

32. I'm sure you don't taste like gasoline

:hippie:

[pitohui]

34. oh, there's a funny one

the recession ended when he became president?

come tell it to the rust belt and the gulf south states, christ, there wasn't a job to be had in the 80s unless you were willing to be involved in crack distribution

i guess some stockbrokers did OK other than that embarrassing moment in 1987 when a few of them literally jumped out of windows after the big crash

[davekriss]

39. Wrong - it started and ended during his first two years

Until GWB came along, GHWB had my vote for "worst President, ever"; until GHWB came along, Ronald Reagan held those honors. Here's (partly) why:

The most intense recession we've had outside the Great Depression occurred on his watch, 1981/1982. Recall that Paul Volcker was Federal Reserve Board Chairman back then, and Volcker vowed to crush inflation by, um, crushing the economy. Volcker raised real interest rates to record levels (no, Shirley, Carter only holds the record for nominal rates, inflation plus real rate, Reagan's got the latter locked).

Part of the reason the rates had to be so high, and thus the recession so devastatingly intense, was to combat the Keynesian effect of Ronald Reagan's deficits, caused by Raygun's tax giveaway to the top tiers in the U.S. Volcker's whole intent was to break the back of inflation by curtailing consumption (less consumption, less demand - less demand, less inflation). Reagan's deficits introduced a strong Keynesian stimulus. Because of this conflict in policy real rates skyrocketed until we had the highest unemployment this century outside the Depression. The litte guy's job was gone because (i) the top 1% needed a generous tax cut, (ii) Reagan wanted a military buildup, (iii) the pre-neo-cons around Reagan wanted to drown the federal government in a bathtub of debt (recall the Stockman defection), and (iv) inflation, which mostly hurts the creditor class (finance and banking), was to be ground down to acceptable levels.

A further effect of these shenanigans was its effect on the dollar: The Reagan deficits forced us to raise interest rates to a risk-adjusted premium relative to other currencies in order to attract the massive flow of foreign funds needed to cover the then unheard of deficits. You can only buy U.S. Treasury Bonds with U.S. Dollars. So the rest of the world exchanged yen and francs and deutsch marcs and lira for USD, driving the value of the dollar to record highs (I remember the yen trading at something like 268 to the dollar). A consequence was that our exports could not compete on price and demand for U.S. goods and services collapsed; to our consumers (those of us who still had jobs) imports looked incredibly cheap. Manufacturing thus lost significant market share, this former backbone of the blue collar middle class collapsed, and we even lost entire industries, never to recover.

So the big accomplishment of Reagan's early years was the vaporiziation of a foundation of American prosperity, a tripling of the national debt, the beginnings of a rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, BUT lower inflation (yipee! ...barf!!).

I could go on and say how this sparked offshoring, a then CEO tactic to maintain market share by minimizing the dollar-cost of the labor input, or the effects of the James Baker Plaza Accord in 1986, Reagan's attempt to fix the overly strong dollar by fixing the market, establishing trading ranges for world currencies and agreements by central banks to maintain them there, but which worked too well, leading to the first major firesale of American assets, but this is already an overly long post.

Bottom line: Ronald Reagan, robber barron, idealogical loon, one of the three worst Presidents, ever.

[bettyellen]

54. carter had the recession first... as well as the oil crisis with gas

rationing and record prices, high unemployment and double digit inflation. he caught the blame for the bad economy, (which is why he didn't get another term) even as it continued into regan's presidency it was described and so seen as a a result of carter's presdency. and like it or not, most americans think reagan turned it around, because inflation did eventually slow down tremedously, and the economy rebounded throughout the early to mid eightites. people have no clue about the intricacies you posted, and that's why he's
STILL tremedously popular... which i believe was the OP's question.
i didn't say reagan deserved credit, i said people perceived that reagan (and republicans in general) were smarter when it came to the economy and business. and a lot of people still believe this, i think bush is starting to destroy the perception... but it's a long held one.

[davekriss]

58. Point taken

I understand why Reagan is popular. Doesn't mean I have to agree when the facts bandied about are misleading or even incorrect (I think McDonalds has sold over 30 trillion hamburgers -- that doesn't make a single one good in my book).

Beside the post-1982 rebound, one other reason so many think positively about Reagan is they've been told to think so by so many talking heads on the MSM as the latter rapidly shifted (even further) right after 1986 (with the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine). Thus his post presidency popularity exceeds his average while President. That doesn't mean one shouldn't get one's hackles up when confronted by misinformation (I don't mean from you, just in general) and speak truth over the fairy tails whenever encountered.

As I recall the facts (and I admit, posting off the cuff here I may have some facts wrong -- it's too late to vet all tonight), Carter continued a worsening trend of stagflation that began in the Gerry Ford years and some attribute as a hangover inflationary effect from Nixon's Vietnam War spend/deficits. Remember WIN (Whip Inflation Now)? It was Ford, not Carter, who sang that tune. However, I do acknowledge that Carter was ineffective at stopping the trend, and the misery index (inflation+unemployment) rose something like 50% during his term (that's not something that's going to get someone reelected). But an official recession did not occur during the Carter years.

Since the Great Depression, the way out of recessions has been to stimulate demand artificially by having the USG serve as consumer of last resort (via deficit spending which stimulates demand, by cranking up the war machine, or both). This Keynesian effect, however, diminishes over time when an economy comes to anticipate inflation -- the extra dollars injected into the economy then simply ratchet up costs rather than actually stimulate additional consumption or production. The only way out of the stagflation trap is to squeeze inflationary expections out by painful recession. Once the economy bottoms out, then Keynesian stimuli can again have it's positive effect and a wave of prosperity can follow. That's precisely what happened in 1981/1982 and the post-1983 rebound.

Under mounting pressure to fix the situation, Carter appointed Paul Volcker to the Fed. Volcker took as his mandate a goal to end significant inflation and even during the Carter years was raising interest rates toward that end. However, during the remaining Carter years all it did was slow consumption still further, increasing unemployment, while inflation stayed stubbornly high (as expectations are hard to change). All this was handed over to Reagan in January 1981.

Now Volcker found himself under a President who shared the same goals. The recession of 1981/1982 was no accident, not some unstoppable cycle of natural economic force, but a conscious decision by Paul Volcker to squeeze inflation out of the economy. And as I said on my last post, the recession had to be made especially bad to counter the Keynesian borrow-and-spend policies instituted by Reagan. I won't repeat the consequences except to say that the result of conscious policy decisions -- decisions that served mostly the interests of the financial and banking sectors -- crushed into insignificance one of the pillars of middle class prosperity, the manufacturing sector.

But to your point, bettyellen, yes, Reagan is popular because he is perceived to have righted a sinking economic ship. The economy did recover post 1983, but only because of (then) never seen before deficit spending and it's massively Keynesian stimultive effect. Reagan, in deciding not to take $2 trillion in taxes from the top tiers of our society while engaged in a massive military buildup, borrowed then current prosperity from future generations, now a common Republican modus operandi. We went from just under $1 trillion in debt to over $3 trillion in Reagan's 8 years, a trend that accelerated under GHWB, was reigned in a bit by Clinton, and reaches new record highs under the current Bush Regime.

Thing is, now, borrow-and-spend isn't as effective as it once was as it leads to firesales of U.S. productive assets. You'd be surprised by how many Americans work now for foreign-owned companies. And given the amount of dollar-denomiated debt to foreign nations, there will come a point where our soverignty is diminished (perhaps it already has, given the Dubai Port deal).

Bottom line: Reagan is popular because of the carefully crafted myth that has been spun by rightwingers around him, not because of anything he actually did (i.e., not when an informed public is aware of the consequences of Reaganite action).

[bettyellen]

59. bottom line is right, my only point was the biggest myth was that he did

something to fix our economy. obviously, you know a lot more of the details than i do, (economics or poly sci major?) but that was the pervading myth at the time. and yes, it's because he was the first republican pres to take full advantage of the friendlier media.
i knew about the fairness doctrine, but did you read the stuff about infomercials? god, that's evil on some many levels.

[tabasco]

2. He's not in his house.

He was a criminal front man for the same corrupt gang that is now waging war on the working class and devastating our nation.

I suppose the answer to your question is the vast number of gullible people in this country who fall for the robber baron propaganda.

[MrBenchley]

3. He had been a movie star

and that's about it.

[Blue_Tires]

27. yup, that's about it

and sadly, some revisionists (wrongly) see him as the person that singlehandedly squashed communism

[MrBenchley]

37. In fact, he'll rank with Harding and Buchanan

as one of America's worst.

[Jamison]

42. Yes, he didn't "squash" communism.

Most people don't know that the Soviets pretty much dismantled their own system from within. Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika were the beginning of the end of communism.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. About that time, I think,

the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. This marked the birth of hate radio. I recall that though the Iran - Contra hearings were broadcast, they were played down- I think at the time they were saying it was a drag on the ratings.

[Poppyseedman]

26. Huh

I remember watching Ollie North during the Iran - Contra hearings. They were not played down at all.

The congressional Iran - Contra hearings hearing transfixed the nation. It was the OJ Simpson trial before the Simpson trail was born.

The media though they had Reagan dead to rights. Congress even had impeachment papers all written up. North has complete immunity to testify fully to bring Reagan down, they thought.

He suckered the congress real good. The rest is history.

[BootinUp]

5. He was an actor frontman, like GWB was supposed to be n/t

[C_U_L8R]

6. He was a crook

and now we have an administration (and large chunk of society)
that worships this corrupt man. Why .. I don't know.
I thought he was an awful president at the time ..and still do.
Almost as bad as George Bush.

[liveoaktx]

9. Startling to read the similiarities in Iran/Contra and Bush's Spy Program

Both of them decided to break the law for their own purposes, they both KNOW/KNEW they were breaking the law, but a cabal of people protects/protected them. Not to mention so many of the same people are involved at both times in history.

One reason I'm thinking about this is because of Bush's desire to go down in history with a legacy. Hell, if Reagan did, and he was a crook, will Bush's miserable and lawless actions be whitewashed by ignorant future generations?

[Arkansas Granny]

19. Like Bush, a lot of the legislation passed during his "reign" was

detrimental to women, children and the poor. The biggest difference I see between the two is that Reagan could put a coherent sentence together and he wasn't afraid of horses.

[BOSSHOG]

7. "Conservatives" are addicted to heroes

They have to have someone to look up to regardless of what havoc they have wrought. As I am fond of telling folks when they spout off about Reagan; he sat in the oval in a nice coat and tie and ordered the deaths of priests, nuns and children in central america. Love to see "conservatives" go berserk when told the truth.

He was extremely mediocre at best. But he sure did have a purty smile.

[adarling]

16. that is exactly it

Heroes are not made, they are born. They don't look for heroic deeds, the deeds come to them and make the choice. This guy did nothing, only reason people thought he was heroic was because of his lame as hell movies and the fact that he had a good publicist. He was one of the worst Presidents, my mother stands by it, i was kid and didn't notice because my parents were good at keeping their struggles private and away from us, but my point is that she has lived harder during his admin than anything else in her life. She used to say that but now GWB is the hardest admin she has lived under. I feel like we are living in a totalitarian country :(.

[BOSSHOG]

25. The best thing reagan has going for him

image wise is that nixon, bush, bush, harding and hoover are all in his party. Its difficult for the loyalists to rank that lot top to bottom. I have to chuckle at the notion.

Hell, reagan wasn't even the best president of the 80's.

[liberal N proud]

8. Only the republicans consider him good

The rest of us know better.
I think that it has been so long since the republicans had a "Good" president that they just deiced to cling to Raygun and his trickle down economics.

He was an actor and his presidency was nothing more than another acting job.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. was he a good president? No, but he played one on TV!

AND he never slept in a Holiday Inn Express, either!

What he did to AIDS sufferers around the world deserves a lot more attention, but for the fact that Reaganauts refuse to sail those stormy seas.

He destroyed a lot of what a previous GOP president (Nixon) had created. CLinton and Bush II finished off the massacre.

[Lindsay]

11. He made this country safe for the greed, racism and

all-around hate that has blossomed since. So the Repugs worship him - while the rest of us couldn't stand him.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. He was an actor with great charisma and a good PR department.

He was brighter than Bush in that he probably understood the implications of policy better and he definitely had a better command of the language so he was able to fake his role a lot better. The Republicans were trying to upgrade their image and Reagan fit the bill perfectly.

[Dangerman]

13. Another reason...

Why I hate all Republicans. :mad:

[Kahuna]

14. No reason. He was almost as big a liar and almost as heartless

as shrub. The media just loved him though because he was grandfatherly and had a twinkle in his eye. :puke:

[unblock]

15. he seemed like a nice old man who smiled and told great stories

which would qualify him as a wonderful grandpa.

when banana republicans judge their own, they talk about people you wish were your grandpa, people you'd like to have a beer with, etc.

when banana republicans judge democrats, they demand saintly perfection from the man who's expected to be the best the nation has to offer, nothing less will do.

[Pithy Cherub]

17. Once you have read further your horror

will increase exponentially. You should keep a log of how many times you see the very same names from that illegal era, Watergate and the Bush administration. Firewall was a real eye opener. Once you realize how Congress (The Republican Senate) was complicit in it all too - it really is a blueprint for today's REPUBLICAN Culture of Corruption. As Fisk was the Independent Counsel, you see what he was up against.

It is on my list to re-read because it has so many details and many of the same players.

[liveoaktx]

36. I saw on the back cover that people were horrified that it ended as

it did, a gross miscarriage of justice.

What got me started thinking about the whole Iran/Contra affair, and I realized I really didn't follow what was going on at the time, was watching "Lord of War" on Dish last week, that is supposed to be based at least partly on Victor Bout.

[still_one]

18. who considers him a good president?

not only was there the Iran/Contra, there was the S&L crisis, record deficiets, elimination of MSM required to give equal time, enabling al queada to be what they are today, destroyed our whole intelligence network in the middle east, and so much more

The reason they perpetuate the lie is because of his personality, and celebrity nature

much of the problems we have today can be laid at his feet

[ixion]

20. MSM history revisionists

Regan was a fascist creep, just like the rest of 'em.

[Jade Fox]

21. The "Reagan Era" was the precursor to...

the Bush Administration. Every outrageous thing Bushco had done has it's roots in the Reagan Era.

As to your question, if you lived through the Reagan era as I did, you'll remember he was roundly loathed and constantly criticized. But many loved him for no logical reason, just his folksy charm, which wasn't even real--as a person he was cold, distant, hot-tempered, and had virtually no relationship with his children. But he came across on TV well, just as Bush seems to for those who "just like him".

[Lexingtonian]

23. It wasn't his policies

- the "success" of those is a fiction/mythology created by people paid to do that. It wasn't the "ideas", which were trivial drivel. And his own people (David Stockman himself) refuted the dogma/joke that is 'supply side economics'. All that stuff about him defeating the Soviet Union is a joke- he just did a lot of the posturing and negotiating with the bluffers and bad actors running the other side, Carter had done all the decisive military and political moves that fully stalemated and tipped the thing objectively.

It was that after Nixon and Carter, the masses of average white people were ashamed of themselves and hated all the constraints that the Cold War put on them. And hated the messy, post-'68, society they were in.

Reagan walked in and pretended everything was okay, all reactionary or unhappy people needed to do was unite against, bully, and then treat groups that were in the minority or weak condescendingly and patronizingly. You simply had to ask yourself "How would you deal with this if you lived in Mayberry?" and act that way. Republicans called this "Morning in America". People like Peggy Noonan think this was all genius. The rest of us just saw a lot of con jobs and denial of reality and acting going on, and the people behind Reagan who were the real power- also a lot of Nixon people- just spent their time looting the taxpayers and breaking laws. IMHO Reagan personally probably neither believed or disbelieved all the stuff he was given to say; after a lifetime in acting you don't care about the lines, you care about whether they have a good effect on the audience.

[entanglement]

24. The current image of Reagan is a result

of extensive RW propaganda. They portray Reagan as some sort of demi-god, the perfect conservative, hero of the cold war and someone who did nothing wrong.

[pitohui]

33. he isn't

you'd have to be pretty far gone to consider the alzheimer's poster boy a good president, he was actually widely reviled for the "reign of error" and his inability to even stay awake -- sound familiar? -- but the GOP likes a brain-damaged figurehead at the top, makes it easier to steal

i don't know anyone who has any respect for reagan except koolaid drinkers

look at the difference worldwide between the affection for reagan and the affection for clinton, there is no comparison

even jimmy carter is better regarded and has been honored for his work

reagan was a sad joke, a return to the days of u.s. grant and every republican out to steal everything he could steal

[Selteri]

40. It's called revisionist history.

Truth is that Reagan had a few positives, some because of timing others because of behind the scene manipulation that he likely was as unaware as King George the Third is.

Market forces are strong due only to radical manipulation and pontentially illegal sotock corralling. Listen to the contradictions, supposedly the hiring rate is up yet the unemploytment rate is still increasing.

The reality is that this is the kind of shift that happens, it seems this country likes going in cycles of increasing corruption that are perpatrated by one group...

I look at Raygun the same way I look at some other historical figures, they broke the laws to be protected by those who choose to write the history books. Lincoln isn't too far from Ronny's little status, regardless of the outcome he affectively bungled through a situation that could have been avoided. Such is the way of those who would glorify those that impose thier views upon others. The small difference between Reagan and Bush are the differences one has from the father who inherits his father's business and bungles it, but manages to keep it afloat and the grandson who inherit's the business and completely destroys the empire because he never saw his grandfather building the business and is not prepared for the reality outside of his highly sheltered life.

[Crunchy Frog]

35. A terrible president who was a decent actor

and who had/has a massive propaganda machine behind him.

The corporate media/Repuke propaganda machine has hammered it in so hard that he "won the Cold War" and "defeated communism", that it is now widely accepted as conventional wisdom and few people have the guts to even challenge it.

[ktlyon]

38. He is held in such high regard because of never ending PR.

Just like how liberal became bad, Raygun became made into everything good. The story is repeated as truth. Just as the myth that liberals are out to destroy our country and all the other nonsense expressed as fact and believed by the people. Good PR can overcome anything even invading defenseless countries for no reason.

[Jara sang]

41. I want to read that. How is it?

[liveoaktx]

46. Excellent-it's written by the special prosecutor in the case

I'm to chapter 3 right now, have already read how the basics of how this happened, and how it was covered up. The most disturbing aspect of the book is that you could substitute G W Bush for Reagan and the different scandals of the Bush administration and read it about the same way. For example, one paragraph talks about how the story went out that Reagan was clueless about what happened, because the administration preferred to have people think he was ignorant rather than complicit (shades of GW)but that Reagan would occasionally chafe at this, because it WAS his decision to break the law. Another paragraph talks about how Reagan signed the Congressional bill to re-fund the Contras the second time but with the Boland amendment, full well knowing he wasn't going to follow the law he was signing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

43. Why? H.L. Mencken explains it best.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken

[Rex]

44. Why was Stalin considered a state hero when buried?

Propaganda. That's all it takes. And lotsalotsa money.

[Frank Cannon]

45. He massively deregulated the media, and they loved him for it

Reagan's the $h1tbag who brought us the TV "infomercial" that is so beloved by many, and well as the guy who killed the "fairness doctrine" so that radio stations could broadcast three hours of the insane mutterings of a neo-Nazi heroin addict every day.

The media REJOICED at all the extra $$$$$$$$ coming their way. They LOVED Reagan, and they let us know about it 24 hours a day.

[Cosmocat]

47. Conservative parroting ...

The Cons keep repeating it, the MSM picks up on it ... Keep saying it over and over and it becomes truth ...

[catmandu57]

48. Depends on who you are

and where you are, myself I detest the fool and would love to defacate on his grave. The foundations for my present mysery were layed by that dottering old fool and his evil henchmen.

[Beelzebud]

49. He isn't considered a good president by anyone I respect.

[tenshi816]

50. Lordy, lordy, you asked the question

that no one could ever give me an answer for back in the day as a young voter.

My mother loved Ronald Reagan and used to talk about how much he connected with the "common man". I used to say, "Mom, he's an actor. He can pretend to be whatever you want him to be."

She totally missed my point, which was, "do you want the most powerful man in the world to be someone who is only acting the role?"

Unfortunately much of America missed the point too.

[Raydawg1234]

51. but he looked presidential on TV!

[uppityperson]

52. Many people want a King, and Reagan was an actor, could play one

that is all.

[stevietheman]

53. Here's my take....

From an overall competence POV, Reagan was a good president.

From a domestic policy perspective, Reagan was awfully bad.

From a foreign policy perspective, Reagan was pretty good.

From a corruption perspective, Reagan wasn't among the worst, but some of his underlings did some very bad things.

Overall, I think historians will give Reagan a mixed review, while they will trash Bush II to no end.

[Greyhound]

55. The short answer is that he and his cronies were the first wholly

owned subsidiary of the Corporate Masters and, as such, he was totally off-limits to any real effort to report his crimes. Stories were submitted by the thousands and they were all spiked.

[Ufomammut]

56. Propaganda, brainwashing under "freedom"

Read Chomsky, Greg Palast and Peter Dale Scott. See the documentary Cover Up: Iran Contra Affair, and see how "patriotic" or pious he and his "family values" cronies were. A lot of groundwork was laid then for what's happening now regarding the strategic creation of the "National Security State."

[Redstone]

57. Only morons think he was a good President. He was a fucking traitor.

Redstone