Republicans still clinging to a mythical Ronald Reagan
· January 27, 2016
By Nick Gier
Reader Columnist
February 6 is former President Ronald Reagan’s 115th birthday, and the myths about him, many times over refuted, continue to intoxicate the minds of many Americans.
The GOP presidential candidate who most often compares himself to Reagan is Senator Marco Rubio. In the American Spectator (5/19/15) Paul Kengor states that several of the GOP candidates have “Reagan-like qualities, but Rubio especially strikes me as the closest to Reagan we’ve seen in a while.”
In a recent speech Rubio promised that “when I become president of the United States, our adversaries around the world will know that America is no longer under the command of someone weak like Barack Obama, and it will be like Ronald Reagan where as soon as he took office, the hostages were released from Iran.”
This claim has long been discredited, and Rubio and others who continue to spout it should know that it is false. The Carter administration had done all the hard bargaining for the release of the hostages, and because the Iranians disliked Carter so much, they did not release them until Reagan came into office.
Reagan talked tough, but those threats were not always matched by decisive action. Even though his advisers encouraged him to do it, Reagan refused to invade Panama to remove dictator and drug trafficker Manuel Noriega. The brutal invasion, which may have caused 3,000 civilian deaths versus 23 U. S. troops killed, was undertaken by President H. W. Bush in December 1989.
Reagan’s intervention in the Lebanon’s civil war was reckless and ended in unmitigated disaster. He ordered the battleship New Jersey to shell Lebanese villages indiscriminately. On October 23, 1983, Hezbollah militants, who had heretofore been fighting Maronite Christians and fellow Muslims, retaliated. They drove a truck bomb into a Marine barracks and 241 soldiers died. Reagan pulled out all U. S. forces and the result was a major victory for Hezbollah and Iran.
Much has been made about Reagan’s great challenge to the Soviets in 1987: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Four days after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, a poll, reported in Will Bunch’s “Tear down This Myth,” showed that 43 percent of Americans believed that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was responsible for the wall’s demolition. Only 14 percent gave Reagan credit, not surprising because his general approval rating had dropped to 48 percent.
When it came to nuclear war Reagan was anything but tough. Soon after seeing the film “The Day After,” a powerful movie about a nuclear holocaust and criticized as peacenik propaganda by conservatives, Reagan sent a telegram to the movie’s director and said that the movie had changed his changed his mind about nuclear disarmament.
Reagan’s advisers were shocked when at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit, he proposed the total abolition of nuclear weapons. When President Obama envisioned a world without nukes a 2009 speech, his call for accelerated disarmament was ridiculed by GOP leaders and Reagan’s putative heirs.
Obama has also been heavily criticized for negotiating a deal with Iran, which just led to the removal of 11 tons of 20 percent-enriched uranium from that country. Iran had no weapons grade materials, and since 2003 it had to plans to build a bomb.
Reagan promised that he would never talk to the Iranians, but Oliver North arranged for arms sales to Iran in hopes of releasing hostages held in Lebanon. North used profits from the sales to support rebels fighting the duly elected government of Nicaragua.
In November 1986 Reagan announced to the American people that the U. S. had not traded arms for hostages, but he was forced to return to them in March 1987 to admit that his administration had indeed done so.
Republican leaders boast about Reagan’s courage to cut taxes and still grow the economy. What they neglect to mention is that Reagan was forced to raise taxes six times in order to head off huge budget deficits. Even so, Reagan tripled the national debt, primarily because of huge, unnecessary military expenditures.
In 2014, calling on the name of Reagan, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback won substantial tax cuts claiming that they would lead to great economic growth, which did not happen. In June 2015 the Legislature reluctantly voted for $432 million in new taxes, the largest increase in the state’s history.
The current GOP presidential candidates have also called for major tax cuts. If any of them are elected president and the promised growth does not happen, will they follow Reagan’s example, or will they subject the nation to certain economic disaster?
One might suspect that you are a democrat, as an unaffiliated voter I can see that politicians of both ilks are the true bloodsuckers that are driving our nation into ruin. Calling liberal or conservative neighbors names is a bit childish as most people believe in the party they were born into and are blinded to the truth that both parties are guilty. I think the Trump phenomenon is merely people lashing out at both parties and politics in general.
An interesting Pat Caddell comment.
Quote:
When 72 percent of American believe the country is in decline, when 60 percent believe that the abrogation of the moral command that we give our children better than we receive is failing … that their children and grandchildren will not get what they got. And when we have more than 85 percent of the American people who believe that the system is such that even if you work hard and play by the rules the system is rigged in favor of those who are rich and powerful, which is the abrogation of the American Dream. I want to know why none of these candidates are explaining. This is the bigger question, why are none of you campaigning on the truth the American people know?
Actually, Reagan was pretty darn liberal compared to some of these candidates. Hell, even the debates were so harmless compared to now!
For the record, I'm for "responsible" capitalism. There was a time when products were well made, and somewhat affordable. These days, you have the Enron scam, CEO's jacking up pills from $3 to $750, CEOs who sucked at their jobs and helped sink our economy in one of the worst economic catastrophes ever, yet they still demanded huge bonuses. This is part of the reason why many people are bitter and cynical I believe. The house I bought for 85K was affordable at that time. But I don't believe that the American dream is as obtainable today as it was when we became of age. Certainly pisses me off anyway. But I also believe that things are set to distract people and keep their minds off what's really happening. I see people of all ages, buried in their smart phones like as if their lives depended on it, people trampling other people at Christmas sales etc. People really are evolving back into apes to a certain degree.
I don't watch sports because the players are overpaid and treated like superheroes. I don't care for news anchors for the same reason, especially Megyn Kelley (she acts like she is the news).
Well...... I believe me and you agree on something here. Yes. This is why I love Lee Iococca. This guy was actually gifted and was in demand, yet in the early 1980s took over Chrysler, who was dwindling on account of the Japanese auto industry, which straight up built better cars than we did, and turned the company around, and introduced us to the mini van, all for a $1 salary. Lee was a true hero, and we need more people like him.............and Jimmy Carter!
I like the guy just like I also really liked Fred Rogers. Just decent selfless human beings. Hell, if everyone was like Jimmy and Fred, people wouldn't have to pack a gun with them everywhere they went, or worry about having their rear hole pointed in any particular direction whilst you were bent over picking something up off the ground.
I know what you mean. When I moved to present location over 40 years ago we didn't have to lock doors and left our keys in the ignition. Things have changed and part of it is that some people think the world owes them.
I know what you mean. When I moved to present location over 40 years ago we didn't have to lock doors and left our keys in the ignition. Things have changed and part of it is that some people think the world owes them.
That's why I have a CCW. When I bought this house in 1992, my neighborhood was all owner occupied, now it is mostly rentals. We have had several drug houses within a block of here and there are several sex offenders in the neighborhood. Our house is paid for and at my age, I don't want to start payments again.
Every house on the block was burglarized a couple years ago except mine. I let it be known to the locals that I would shoot trespassers and they never hit us.
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