Look at USC stepping up! Very nice. Fight On Trojans!
Are you ready for Reaganpalooza? February 6 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, and the coming week will be loaded with events, op-eds, and television packages commemorating the day and celebrating the 40th president.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and the University of Southern California are holding an academic-star-studded conference on the Reagan legacy. Sarah Palin will deliver the keynote address at a gala being mounted at Reagan's former ranch in Santa Barbara, California.
Preparing for the Reagan centennial, the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, which seeks to name schools, roads and courthouses across the country after the Gipper, launched a new website. Past and present Reaganites will be out in force -- on cable television, on editorial pages, on blogs -- to hail Reagan as the greatest president of the past century, or the nation's entire history.
The Reagan acolytes will contend that he brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union with his hawkish stance and tough talk ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") and revived the U.S. economy with tax cuts and spending cuts. That he single-handedly restored American greatness after the gloomy 1970s. All this is debatable.
In his second term, Reagan took steps to improve relations with the Soviet Union, a nation that was crumbling internally, and this detente made it easier for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to continue with his perestroika reforms that would mark the end of the USSR. And though inflation and unemployment fell during the Reagan years, Reagan, who raised taxes after he cut them, saddled the nation with large deficits, and did little as a massive wave of de-industrialization hit working class Americans (ask a 1980s steelworker). During the Reagan years, wages for middle- and low-income families dropped.
The big Reagan picture will be a topic of contention for historians for years to come. In the meantime, it should not be forgotten that there was a dark side to the Reagan presidency. And that deserves as much attention as Reagan's famous sunny disposition.
An entire book could be written chronicling the dreadful deeds of the Reagan crowd. But, in an act of pre-emptive counter-programming, here's a partial list.
-- The Reagan administration routinely made common cause with tyrants. It got cozy with the fascist, anti-Semitic, and torture-fancying generals of the Argentine junta and backed human-rights abusing governments throughout Latin America. The administration tried to cover up a massive massacre of civilians in El Salvador, because it was backing the rightwing military there. It resisted efforts to oppose and isolate the racist leaders of apartheid South Africa, instead opting for "constructive engagement" with the white minority government of Pretoria. It enthusiastically endorsed the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, with Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1981 toasting Marcos, "we love your adherence to democratic principles and the democratic process." (Five years later, when a popular uprising threatened Marcos, the Reagan administration did cut him loose.) Much of this despot-coddling was done in the name of anti-communism, revealing that Reagan and his crew had a rather narrow and situational approach to championing freedom and democracy.
-- Its crusade against communism led the Reagan administration to support a not-too-secret secret war in Central America, aiding the Nicaraguan contras fighting against the socialist government of Nicaragua. Reagan referred to the contras as "freedom fighters," but his fondness for them led the U.S. government down the road to hypocrisy -- and worse. The CIA produced an "assassination manual" for the contras. And as a CIA inspector general report later acknowledged, the agency, in supporting the contras, worked with individuals it suspected of being involved in drug-dealing. Ponder this contradiction: As Nancy Reagan was preaching, "Just Say No," the CIA, implementing administration policy, was knowingly using suspected drug-runners in this secret war. Of course, the administration's involvement in this covert war partly led to the Iran-contra scandal, during which the administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to gain the release of hostages held by terrorist groups -- even while the administration was strenuously pressuring NATO allies not to sell such weapons to Iran, and while proclaiming an official position of never negotiating with terrorists. Working out of the White House, Reagan aides funneled the money raised in these Iranian arms deals to furnish munitions to the contras, all as a way of circumventing a congressional ban on such support.
-- Scandals galore marked the Reagan years. The 1980s savings and loan scandal -- partly caused by the administration's aversion to even minimal regulation -- resulted in a bailout that transferred hundreds of billions of dollars from taxpayers to S&L scammers. Top Reagan aide Michael Deaver was convicted of perjury related to influence-peddling. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Republican-wired consultants pocketed millions for rigging contracts.
The Reagan years were a time of fierce and divisive controversies, over policy and politics. Ronald Reagan's administration more than once resorted to skulduggery to get its way. Overseas, it sided with brutes. At home, it gave tax credits to private schools that segregated. The depiction of Reagan as one of the nation's most glorious leaders is but a conservative cartoon. His legacy is far more complicated -- and blemished. Next week will be an appropriate time to remember that. But I'll bet Sarah Palin doesn't get around to mentioning any of this.
By David Corn
Look at USC stepping up! Very nice. Fight On Trojans!
and the left whines about hate talk towards obama....
I'm not sure pointing out flaws in Reagan's administration would qualify as hate speech. It certainly isn't on par with the level of misinformation and bullshit thrown around about Obama.
And the truth is that the GOP has turned Reagan into a mythological figure, and have conveniently forgotten the ills of those times.
who is the vegetable? it goes beyond just criticizing his policies....
there are many dems who look fondly on reagan...i fail to see why the left is in such a hissy fit over him, he did many great things and was good for this country, i fail to see why some on the left are so determined to demonize him
trollkenneth, do yoiu really want to get into a pissing match about who has the worst posters..? i have on idea who made that poster you created, it could be a dem for all i know
you can tell who the left really hates by the amount of time they continue to despise them after their deaths. Reagan must have done something pretty awesome.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
It is true that many of us "dems" liked Reagan. The left side of the party...the more vocal side, are the ones running the show now. They're the ones you hear from and it won't be anything positive. Reagan wasn't perfect but he was the most presidential president we've had in a long time. None since him have even come close.
http://www.justplainpolitics.com/blog.php?u=237
If you feel so inclined a comment would be appreciated.
Respect a believers right to believe, but they should damn well repect our right to challenge such utterly illogical notions.
Reagan did some great stuff. I admire a lot of what he did. But, like Mott, this idolizing him like the right does is sorta sick.
Yes, he did great stuff. He also supported murderous dictators, broke laws, lied about it, and helped create some ugly situations for us all over the world.
He wanted ketsup listed as a vegetable in school lunches.
He put Watts in as the secretary of the interior. Does anyone remember Watts' response to someone talking about the terrible decisions he made about use of federal lands? He actually said God was going to have judgement day soon, so we needn't worry about it.
Well that's debatable. Reagan was the most media savy modern President. He demonstrated how a the media could be used to mass communicate a disciplined message in order to build a winning political coalition and he also demonstrated the importance of staying on message so that you could dictate the direction of political discourse. He was indeed a master communicator. In that respect Reagan transformed modern Presidential Politics.
On the downside Reagan's lack of in depth technical knowledge about large scale administration, the legislative process, forming and implementing public policy and implementation of the law was a severe liability. It forced Reagan to be a delegator and he was a master of delegation. He was outstanding at surrounding himself with excellent advisors and lieutenants. He was far better at it then another conservative President, who I won't mention, who over relied on delegating. The problem with Reagan's delegating executive responsibility is all to often it left him out of touch and out of control of the branch of the government that he was the executive in charge of to the detriment of the country. The Iran Contra affair was a good example of that. I don't believe Reagan meant anything nefarious there but that he had delegated responsibility to the wrong people, become out of touch with the operation and subsequently lost executive control. That was not a good thing.
My favorite mythology about Reagan is that he won the cold war. Anyone who believes that is an idiot who knows nothing of modern history.
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