And because of Bush, Obama now occupies the White House. Ford was succeeded by Carter. In Carter’s case, he was subsequently punished for being weak. Actually, Daniel Moynihan had unkinder things to say about Carter’s worldview, but suffice to say the public did not have confidence in his ability to lead us in the Cold War.
Just as Obama was tougher on terrorism than Bush, Carter was stronger than Reagan on foreign policy. It takes more strength to return the Canal Zone to Panama than it did to invade Grenada.
In what way? Bucking public opinion? well, yeah, and that’s why Carter was a one-termer.
Carter was a one-termer because of Reagan’s treason.
Any president could have invaded Grenada. Most states’ National Guards could have done so. Using military force for no particular reason is not a sign of strength- it takes more strength to treat other nations as equals and promote human rights. Reagan wasn’t fit to shine Carter’s shoes.
You can repeat that all you want. It’s still just a liberal masturbatory fantasy. At any rate, Carter was ridiculously unpopular. Reagan could probably have shot someone in the head, on national TV, and still beaten Carter in the election.
The fact remains Reagan did commit treason. Had he not done so, or if the hostage rescue not failed, Carter would have won.
Why is his central role in mediating the Israel-Egypt peace so thoroughly forgotten? Because the Nobel committee left him out for some reason? The Camp David Accords took more strength and moral courage than Reagan could ever imagine.
“It’s morning in America” and “America is riding tall in the saddle” indeed. :rolleyes: The world is not a cowboy movie.
The allegations against Reagan have never even come close to being proven. The witnesses are unreliable. This stuff is akin to the Vince Foster “murder”.
However, Carter was actually politicizing the hostage situation. He became VERY motivated to get them released so he could get reelected when it looked like he might lose.
What was his motive before the campaign got underway, then? :rolleyes:
Thank you for that. The Camp David accords were a bigger accomplishment in Carter’s single term than anything that Reagan and both Bushes did in their combined 5 terms.
They were a tremendous accomplishment. Carter is the best peacemaker President we ever had, next to Clinton(Oslo is actually a much more difficult accomplishment and Clinton came SO close in 2000).
Carter was also good on many aspects of domestic policy. No President has ever been better at smart deregulation.
But when there was conflict, Carter wilted. That was his cardinal sin.
And your view of Reagan is a caricature that was outdated in 1983. When Reagan saw change in the Soviet Union he jumped at the chance to make a better world.
How about your favorite examples, since you invoke caricatures?
How? What did he do that made a difference? Speaking of caricatures, that is. :dubious:
By then the public had long since written off the war as unwinnable and would have responded positively to any successful ending of U.S. involvement.
What he did to make a difference was embrace Gorbachev. Nixon, supposedly more moderate than Reagan, and who certainly had more diplomatic finesse than to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire”, counseled against trusting Gorby. Most of the Republican old guard did.
As for Carter’s weakness, letting a nation commit an act of war against us and responding with negotiations is weak. Iraq did far less(simply tried to assassinate Bush 41) and Clinton bombed them for it. An embassy is sovereign territory. Invading it and kidnapping our diplomats is as clear an act of war as you can get short of attacking the mainland and Carter treated it as as simple diplomatic problem.
Then there was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to which Carter responded by: boycotting the Olympics and imposing incredibly weak sanctions. Of course force in that situation was unthinkable, but we had other levers. The sanctions we’ve imposed on Russia now are far more severe, so Obama 1, Carter 0, on that count.
But Daniel Moynihan summed Carter’s problem up best:
Explain. How did he “embrace” a guy he insisted needed to be “verified”, and how did that make a difference? :dubious: The USSR collapsed for internal reasons, remember?
But bombing them instead would have been strong? :rolleyes:
Please dispense with the alternate timeline stuff, okay? :rolleyes:
While the “strong” response would have been what? Bombing Moscow? :rolleyes:
Except that you criticize other approaches as “weak”. :rolleyes:
Explain what Carter should have done that you would not call “weak”. :rolleyes:
The world is a *little *more complicated than “Republicans good, Democrats bad”, my friend who complains of “caricatures”.
So Ray-Gun trusted Gorby. Big whoop. And Chimpy looked in Putin’s soul.
In the Iranian hostage ordeal, it wasn’t an act of war in the same respect Pearl Harbor was. It was basically an act of terrorism. The hostages all made it back, thanks to Carter’s unwillingness to start lobbing bombs and/or invading.
The USSR eventually left Afghanistan, which should have signaled to the rest of the world that you can’t expect to conquer that nation and have anything that’s governable. Too bad Bush was too busy with his coke habit to take notice.
A liberal Democrat considers Carter to have accomplished more than Reagan, Bush and Bush - are we supposed to be surprised?
The British showed the world that a century earlier.
That’s unfair. I don’t think there was a good argument not to go root out the Taliban, who had harbored the 9/11 terrorists. Certainly there was no major public objection at the time, just cautions about mission creep that were not heeded, and concerns about “nation building” of a type Bush had derided in his campaign. His addiction history, to whatever substances, did not play a role there, although his lifelong intellectual laziness may have.
He gave his reasons. Your refutation of them is, well, what? Just the above?
Mondale and Dukakis both had to run against a strong Reagan economy. In 1992 the economy was in recession and the cold reality (at least in the eyes of the electorate) of Reagan/Bush’s deficits had finally set in. For the most part, the 1992 campaign consisted of Clinton accusing Bush of being fiscally irresponsible with Bush trying to change the subject by accusing Clinton of infidelity and complaining about how popular culture was accelerating the moral decay of America. In a nutshell, the only reason to vote Republican in 1992 was if you thought that Murphy Brown having a baby without being married was a greater threat to your family than the possibility of losing your job and being unable to support them.