Why all the adulation for Ronald Reagan?

[WI_DEM]

Today is the 25th Anniversary of the Assassination attempt on Reagan and one article on MSN that I read begins, "His presidency reshaped the world..."

I think his reputation is much greater than it deserves to be. Yes he was president when Communism started to crumble and the right wing and others tend to think it was his military spending which did it--what about Mikhail Gorbachev? I think he had a lot to do with it. And if we are going to look at military spending and our cold war policies of containment then don't we have to "thank" all US presidents from Truman onward? Why does St. Ronnie get singled out?

What are some of his other legacies? Oh yeah, he wanted to make Ketchup a vegetable in a school lunch, he wanted to cut social security and Medicare and did cut tons of social programs. He ignored the plight of the homeless and AIDS victims and only seemed to understand AIDS was a problem when his buddy Rock Hudson got the disease. His administration publically proclaimed it wouldn't negotiate with terrorists yet he approved the Iran/Contra arms for hostages deal.

So why is there so much slobbering over Reagan?

[NYCGirl]

1. I have no idea. I always thought he was a dangerous doddering old fool.

:shrug:

[ourbluenation]

2. beats me - like Jr he too spent money like a drunken sailor and

caused much of the homeless problem we have today. I just can't get past the actor part.

[Virginia Dare]

3. About the only thing admirable about him was...

he was one tough son-of-a-bitch. If, God forbid, Chimpy got shot, he would immediately shit his pants and start screaming "mommy" hysterically. If he recovered, he would spend the rest of his days in a fetal position with his thumb in his mouth.

[400Years]

4. he helped murder a million guatamalans

[AngryAmish]

5. Everyone on DU is always kissing his a--

I kid.

[MADem]

7. y'almost got me there!!!!!!! n/t

[MADem]

6. Well, his presidency DID reshape the world!

It sure reshaped America--gutted worker rights, tossed the mentally ill into the streets with no care or support, and fostered the "GREED IS GOOD" mentality that pervades to this day.

Yee fucking haw!

[pocket]

21. yup, just like Hitler

he certainly did have a big impact. Just not a good one.

[AlCzervik]

8. people like having ketchup classified as a vegetable?

[MADem]

24. That was one of my favorites!!!

Even rightwingers had to pause when they heard that one.

When you see the sharp uptick in childhood obesity rates, you can thank Ronnie for at least a few of those pounds!

[Kingshakabobo]

9. The rethuglicans are, as usual, "working the refs."

It's part of their plan to name everything after the drooling old fool so they can maintain the "republicans are good/democrats are bad" meme.

I swear, if the rethugs had their way, this country would be like communist China where the new regime purges the old regime from the public record.

[knowbody0]

10. he was "unplugged"

conveniently to distract from the laughable debate.
he was a moron. an actor. a monkey.

[bobja]

11. He was also out to bust unions and trash the middle class.

Remember piss down, er, I mean trickle down economics? Plus all the scandals, selling arms to our enemies to finance right wing death squads in Central America, etc. Probably one of the worst presidents in my lifetime.

[bryant69]

12. He talked about America in a certain way

Particularly coming after the Nixon and Carter years - years in which our failures as a nation were manifest (and we had our noses regularly rubbed in our failures as well). He made it seem like it was ok to love America again.

His policies were crap (as others have noted), but his rhetoric was both well crafted and well timed.

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

[cynatnite]

20. I think you're onto something here...

I think the way he spoke gave a lot of people hope. I even felt that way at times.

[bleedingheart]

34. He was delusional and diverted our attention away from the real problems

while some thought that was great....it really wasn't

Carter lost because he was telling the truth and was honest.

Reagan painted a picture people wanted to see but it didn't exist....he duped them.

[bryant69]

36. It's a perspective

I'm certainly not going to suggest Reagan was good for our country - but he communicated something positive about America and about Americans, and that's how he got his way.

[lectrobyte]

13. His reputation is manufactured after the fact. At the time, I don't

remember him being that well thought of, and the whole set of scandals and the horrendous shape of the economy is his legacy I remember best.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. H.L. Mencken explained 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

Reaffirmed in 2000 & 2004.

[Atman]

15. Haven't you noticed the republican Worship pattern?

They MUST blindly, faithfully, unquestioningly follow their "leaders."

Republicanism is a type of pathology. They like to think they're somehow free thinkers or something, but the exact opposite is true. They're already so high and mighty and full of themselves that they could never take "orders" from a lower life form like a liberal democrat. So they place any "leader" on a pedestal and unflinchingly genuflect to him. They wanted Reagan on Mt. Rushmore before he'd even forgotten his name! They renamed half of Washington after him. And WHY? The republicans cannot accept "leadership." It is beneath them. So instead, they worship, just as with George W. Bush. To do otherwise would be to admit that you were following a lie in the first place.

[JHB]

16. Because he played "Tough & Confident" at just the right stage fo history..

...and because a lot of his supporters were (and are) paranoids who believed all their own worst nightmares about what the Soviets could actually accomplish.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

17. It's all in my user name.

He started us down the road of media concentration and gets lots of positive PR for it - from the media monopolies he made possible.

[Norquist Nemesis]

18. To effectively re-write history, they have to keep feeding the

crap to the masses. I mean, who's really going to go and research it?

[calmblueocean]

19. Amen. If you want to worship someone for defeating the USSR, praise Gorby.

Take away Gorbachev, put in a Soviet hardliner or even a moderate, and the USSR would still be around today. It was Gorbachev's economic and political reforms combined with old ethnic intra-republic tensions that tore the Soviet Union apart from the inside. In many ways, Reagan was like a drunk driver who miraculously makes it home safe. Had Gorby not been in power, Reagan's SDI brinksmanship could've started WWIII.

[hughee99]

27. I'm not trying to credit Raygun here

but take away Gorby and put in a hardliner, and the Soviet Union STILL would have collapsed under it's own weight by now. Gorbachev helped make things go "more smoothly", but the soviet system was not long for this world no matter who was running it, IMHO.

[MemphisTiger]

22. Because he tried to take down welfare and other social

programs

[Lexingtonian]

23. He wasn't Nixon, Ford, or either Bush

and he escaped impeachment/removal.

The wingnuts make up all sorts of excuses to worship him. Carter stalemating the Russians militarily and politically and cleaning up the Nixon economic mess to a large degree, via Paul Volcker, made it pretty easy for Reagan. It's always easy when someone else has done all the work. Reagan took all the credit for what Carter sacrificed his career for. (Don't all Republicans work that way?)

Oh, every government says it won't negotiate with terrorists. Every government invariably does.

You should go look at the Reagan Memorial Library and whatever real Reaganiana there is. It's strange, shabby, vain, and purely nostalgic stuff. If you've ever seen the Reaganophile crowd up close, like at his library, it's just a wierdly familiar form of pathetic people. They have a terrible need to be right about something and glorious, but that world where they really matter and want to have return somehow never really existed. Read a bunch of Peggy Noonan stuff (yeah, don't eat six to twelve hours before doing any of that)- that really gets at all the vacuous Nothing and people without core or character it was all about.

[LSK]

25. he left us a ton of debt

Thats his legacy.

Oh yea, he killed off the fairness doctrine too.

[demosincebirth]

26. To me, he was a simple old man. He was a figure head and the

people behind the scenes manipulated him like a puppet.

I don't think he ever knew he was president.

He put the American Labor movement back 50 years.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

28. Don't forget about

the glorious invasion of Grenada! Truly a highwater mark in any mans' life of accomplishments.
I too am puzzled by the constant fawning over the former host of "Death Valley Days"......... :shrug:

[calico1]

29. Though not a good one, remember Reagan was

an actor. He used his Hollywood experience to his advantage. He knew how to look presidential, act presidential, talk presidential, dress presidential. It was the best acting role of his life and it fooled a lot of people who still think of this mediocre president as having been "great." But then again, people think bush is great and a strong leader and his a bumbling moron.

[Bridget Burke]

31. Reagan could make a speech as though he meant it.

But I don't understand why his worshippers can't notice that Bush CAN'T!

[Left Is Write]

33. That's what my mother has always said.

She couldn't stand Reagan. She said that "acting" as president was his greatest role ever - and that he fooled a lot of people. Maybe he was a better actor than he's given credit for.

[porphyrian]

30. Fuck reagan.

I'm still pissed the piece of shit lost his mind before he could be held accountable.

[warrens]

32. He made the world a lot better for death squadders

Shit, you can practically put it on your resume these days. Just so long as they're right wing death squads, not those horrible commie terraists.

[bleedingheart]

35. The Man who restored the sense that shitting on the poor was okay

and Gordon Gecko summed it up in Wall Street...."Greed is good"...

and that is something Reaganites live by...