Misspells? You Americans have the nerve!!
I am not a Canadian Tory and not a British Tory either.
I didn’t say he was stupid. I simply said he was out of touch, and for the record, Mayer wasn’t the only one saying so.
The point is, he was in his 70s, and already starting to experience the first symptoms of Alzheimers. I also suggest Paul Slansky’s The Clothes Have No Emperor. It is simply taken from all major news sources, releases, and official statements. You can SEE quite clearly the contradictions this guy made. His own aids and staff say he was out of touch.
Reagan was not out of touch. Read the book. Wjat Democrats will never understand or accept is that Reagan was intelligent, and had a voracious appetite for reading. He read everything. He had an amazing grasp of many disparate subjects. But his Gosh Folks style made him look like your doddering old relative, and the characterization stuck. But it’s false.
Look, there are two different management styles. One is delegatory, and one is hands-on. The hands-on management style works in smaller organizations, or in specific instances of critical but small-scale initiatives. The delegatory style works when A) you have a good team, B) You have a good sense of what can be delegated and what can’t, and C) The issues are complex enough that you simply can’t know enough about it by yourself. Reagan and George W. tend to delegate more. Clinton and Carter were hands-on, as Gore would have been.
A great executive will use both models as appropriate. For example, look at Jack Welch at GE, who many thing is one of the best CEO’s of this century. His normal mode is delegatory, as it has to be in a company as large as GE. But he’s always been willing to roll up his sleeves and take a hands-on approach on big initiatives, as he recently did with the attempted merger with Honeywell.
Carter in particular was a failure for being too hands-on. He micromanaged everything. Reagan was perhaps a little too detached from some of his initiatives, and delegated a little too much. Or you could make the argument that his delegating was good, but his team let him down in some cases.
George W. so far seems to have struck a pretty good balance in this regard. The guy has a Harvard MBA, after all. It’s no surprise to me that he’s a good manager, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to you.
There are also two types of political ‘skills’ that need to be evaluated here. The first is communication - taking your ideas to the bully pulpit and getting public opinion on your side. Clinton and Reagan were masters at this. The second skill is in the trenches - being able to personally wade into the fray and work one-on-one with legislators to move them to your point of view. Reagan and Clinton were only so-so at this. But Bush so far appears to be a MASTER of this type of politicking. By all accounts, when he gets one on one with someone he impresses the heck out of them. They tend to walk out of a meeting with him thinking that he’s a great guy, much smarter than they thought he’d be, and more disposed to doing what he wants.
I don’t think this skill can be denied. Look at what he managed last week - The patient’s bill of rights was not going his way, but was moving rapidly towards the Dingell-Norwood variant. Bush rolled up his sleeves and started calling up key players in the house, and within a week turned something like 70 votes his way. That’s amazing. And you can’t give the credit to his team - this was an individual effort. This was about talking to Congressmen one-on-one and getting them to come around to your way of thinking.
He did the same thing with ANWR, and got a vote in the House that no one thought he’d ever get two weeks ago.
He did the same thing with his tax cut. Every time it looked like it was dying, Bush himself waded into the fray and pulled it out.
He also had a reputation for doing exactly this in Texas, so it’s clearly his normal mode and not a fluke.
But the public-relations side of his presidency has been a disaster. For instance, the Democrats managed to successfully trap him on Arsenic, and have outright lied about his policy and got away with it. I just saw a commercial from the Democrats on CNN, with a little girl holding up a glass and saying, “Can I have some more arsenic, mommy?” and the voice overlay “George Bush wants to increase the arsenic in your drinking water.” Now, this is an outright lie. The current standard is 50 ppm, and Clinton didn’t change it for 8 years, then dropped an arbitrary executive order in his last few days to set the level at 10 ppm, which was a decision not based in science, but politics. It was a last piece of Clinton brilliance, which laid a trap for Bush that he stupidly fell into.
But Bush merely said that rule needed to be reviewed, and right from the start said that he also felt that arsenic needed to be reduced, but he wasn’t sure that 10 ppm was the right level. But he’s been caricatured as wanting to increase arsenic over current levels. A better politician (or one with better advisors) would never had let that happen. CLINTON would never have let that happen.
If someone had pigeonholed Reagan like that, he would have had one of those fatherly televised chats with the nation explaining his viewpoint, and deflected much of the criticism. Clinton would have made witty asides in public, intelligently-designed jokes to ridicule that position, etc. Both of them would have stomped such a gross exaggeration into the ground. Bush has let it become the conventional wisdom.
The problem of talking about success is that the question itself is like a push poll: the answer comes out avoiding the whole story. Yes, the way the discussion is framed one has to say that he is successful, but the “liberal” media is not doing a good job of investigating the damage his successes are doing.
IMO the day I realized he was being a “success” was when virtually all the reactionary members of his cabinet were not met with a strong opposition. The selection of Elliot Abrams, and Negroponte are particularly anti ethical to me because I suffered directly for their actions in the previous republican administrations.
But lets concentrate in the success of the current patients bill of rights. The Bush success (if the “compromise” bill is passed) would require that lawsuits be governed by federal standards, which critics said would trump laws in states like Texas and California that protect millions of patients and hold HMOs accountable. Bush is successful in holding the corporate line. I guess standing up for the people’s agenda must therefore be a failure in this context.
Having no mandate, his successes are great only for a few americans.
The majority of his aids, staff, and many of the facts say otherwise-now that it’s out in the open.
Look-I’m not bashing the man. But everything I read, all of the facts and such point to a man who was out of touch.
It’s not about Democrats or Republicans, but about a president who was a figurehead. If Bush is the same, it could be frightening. I want someone in office who KNOWS what he is doing. Who DOESN’T scare the crap out of people.
I don’t want a president who delegates to the point we have marines and white house aids running the country.
He thought trees caused pollution, nuclear torpedos could be recalled after being fired, that the SS buried at Bitzberg were just as much victims as those in the concentration camps, he didn’t know the Soviets weapons were landbased, he claimed there was no word for freedom in the Russian language, told stories from movies as truth, the total mistatment about the British Gun Laws, etc etc.
I’m not trying to hijack this thread. But a president like Reagan frightens me, seriously seriously scares me. If he knew and approved of Iran Contra, he was a criminal. If he DIDN’T know, then security was so lax White House Staff could make up their OWN foreign policy, reguardless of what Congress says. And with Shrub, I think it’s happening again. I don’t like people who deliberately try and subvert Congress and all the checks and balances we have in our system.
Were you involved in the movement to suppress democracy in Latin American and substitute Communist military dictatorships?
Guinistasia, rather than just relying on old anecdotes and comments from third parties, why don’t you just read the book? Or read Reagan’s 1964 speech suporting Barry Goldwater, which he wrote himself. BTW, he wrote a lot of his own speeches, and heavily re-wrote many of the speeches his writers did for him.
And a lot of the supposed ‘stupid’ comments associated with Reagan are either mischaracterizations, outright lies, or ‘errors’ that are actually correct.
Take the notion that trees cause pollution. It’s true, you know. Have you ever been to the Smokey Mountains? Do you know why they are called the Smokey Mountains? Because there is a persistant blue haze that settles over the valleys, caused by the release of Terpenes from the soft wooded trees like Pines and spruces. They are responsible for that nice smell Christmas trees give off. They are hydrocarbons that break down in sunlight to give that bluish haze. And guess what that haze is composed of? Ground-level ozone resulting from the breakdown of the hydrocarbons. Ground level ozone is an identified pollutant, and is the same stuff that’s responsible for Smog in cities (in this case, the hydrocarbons from auto exhaust break down in sunlight).
All softwood forests emit terpenes, but the haze usually blows off. Atmospheric conditions around the Smokey Mountains allow it to collect.
Terpenes are an identified pollutant, and there is evidence that they are responsible for some serious lung problems in workers exposed them in high concentration (typically in softwood manufacturing plants). And of course, the environmental movement has been fighting against ground-level ozone for decades.
I’d like a source for the claim that Reagan didn’t know Soviet Weapons were landbased. That is so far fetched that it’s either a gross exaggeration of what he said, a misquotation, or an outright lie.
While “great” is too strong, he has that quiet charm that worked for Jimmy Carter. And Eisenhower. The rabble rousers get their day, and the quiet ones also win a few.
That was 1964-by the 80s, Reagan was in his seventies and starting to be affected by ALZHEIMERS, a known fact. At LEAST in 2nd term.
Quoting from The Clothes Have No Emperor,
“At a meeting with congressmen to discuss arms reduction, President Reagan-in office for almost three years-says he has only recently learned that most of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal is land-based. This elementary information is essential to any rational thinking about disarmament.”
-Paul Slansky
Now, I don’t know jackshit about missiles or weapons, but I think this is something very frightening.
And WHAT book are you talking about? Reagan’s book? I don’t have access to it at the moment. I am not saying that he wasn’t smart in his day. I am saying that by 1983, and beyond, he was already becoming old and out of touch.
BTW, if YOU are trying to use the Reagan book to support YOUR argument, YOU should also be quoting it, not simply telling ME to read it, to confirm YOUR quotes for YOU.
Look, this is heading towards a separate topic. All I’m saying is I think that a president is who is not hands on and delegates TOO much to his aids is dangerous.
I an not sure what you are saying december, I do now that antidemocratic communism was an element of the revels in Central America, And I was against that, but fighting corruption and fascist like governments was another reason why people fought in Latin America. But lets stick with the subject of democracy in Latin America and the “success” of Bush in the USA:
Look for example at Nicaragua: The Sandinistas were defeated in a democratic election, by a coalition that included the real communist party in Nicaragua. The Bush senior administration was happy with that result because the communist party was only a small part of the coalition that defeated the Sandinistas, and since the Sandinistas were the “commies” that was ok with Bush senior.
My beef with Abraham, Negroponte etc, is that the Reagan administration did try to hide massacres of “the armies of democracy” like in el Mozote in El Salvador. And in the USA they lied to congress in the Iran-Contra affair.
Today the Sandinistas are threatening to win again in Nicaragua but Bush jr. looks ready to aid the opposition with money to prevent that “antidemocratic” move by the people of Nicaragua. Will this become another success for Bush?
Indeed democracy is the best ideal, but we do have a problem if we are not vigilant in protecting the rights of even political parties that we do not like. Personally I believe that democracy is the best system, but it requires eternal vigilance, and we are not doing a god job when our democracy in the USA is becoming like the ones in the banana republics of the past. I believe the main reason why we do not come to blows in the USA is that we have a historical record that show us that we can correct our mistakes in the next election. To me the problem with Bush has been that he has not done a Rutherford B. Hayes
Maneuver: to calm all the people that did not vote for him (the majority), Hayes promised a one term only administration after the similarly contested election of 1876. He fulfilled his promise. Now that was showing character. And trust in democracy.
Guinistasia: You are now twisting your own words to get away from the claims that you made earlier. First, I offered examples of how trees give off pollution. You did not respond. I take it you will retract that claim, and not use it against Reagan again?
And your original statement was “Ronald Reagan did not know that the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal was land-based”. Your quote to back that up comes from a biased anti-Reagan book, which itself makes an unverified claim (unless you have the source in this Congressional meeting, or minutes of the hearing?) that Reagan didn’t know that the majority of missiles were land-based. Even if true (and I sincerely doubt it), that’s a much different claim.
And now we’re claiming that Reagan wasn’t stupid all his life, but just while he was President? That’s pretty convenient. You claim it’s a FACT that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s while in office. Cite? Alzheimers can hit you pretty quickly, BTW. I know - my grandfather died of Alzheimers.
Anyway, since you’ve now modified your claim to include only the ‘later’ Reagan, I’ll have to dig up some information from his years in office. I’ll do that, and start a new thread to avoid hijacking this one further.
No, I’m not going to retract it. I don’t believe that trees cause pollution, at least not nearly as much as cars and oil tankers.
Besides, the CLAIM I made has been stated in other books-I will try and find it. If I don’t, I will retract it. But Slansky’s book is copied straight from PRESS releases. When I get back to school, I’ll look it up in the old issues of Time and Newsweek-which pretty much stated the same thing!
I still don’t think he was brilliant. Maybe he was good with words, but that doesn’t mean jackshit. I still have yet to READ what he wrote, so I’ll judge that when I come to it. That said, I think he was NOT a good president. There’s a WORLD of difference between writing speeches and governing the goddamn country.
And I stand by what I say about Alzheimers-there were a great many of his AIDS he said he was starting to ACT like an elderly man. There were many who said he was forgetful. How the HELL did he “forget” about selling arms to Iran and breaking the law?
If you want an account of how Reagan was unable to grasp critical policy details you can start with The Triumph of Politics written by David Stockman his own budget director. There are some revealing stories about how Reagan completely failed to grasp Stockman’s warnings about budget deficits and replied only with some irrelevant anecdotes from his acting career.
For similar stories in the foreign-policy area read the chapter on Reagan from Kissinger’s book on Diplomacy. Both these men incidentally express admiration for Reagan at the level of his broad vision. But Stockman’s book in particular is an excellent account of the Reagan ideology (which he strongly supports) became completely unstuck in its implementation because among other things of Reagan’s failure to make hard political decisions and his general inability to grasp basic economic facts.
I have read a few of the speeches in the book that December mentioned and I wasn’t impressed. They were reasonably well written but rather crude in terms of the quality of argument. Intellectually I really didn’t find them better than the standard ideolgical boilerplate.
Could someone give examples of Reagan’s arguments which you found particularly intelligent?
I’ve read the book. Twice. I’m looking at it sitting on my shelf right now. Stockman’s point wasn’t that Reagan was stupid, but that he was too nice. He didn’t have the spine to carry out his own policies. And I think there’s some truth to that.
As for not understanding basic economics… That’s ridiculous. Reagan had a solid grasp of economics. He had a degree in it.
Let’s Let Reagan Speak:
Okay, how better to judge a person than by reading transcripts of interviews with him, where he has to answer question extemporaneously.
Here’s an interview with foreign Journalists in 1984, shortly after the time Guinistasia claims he didn’t know the Soviets had Land-Based Weapons: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/53184n.htm
I defy you to find a hint of Alzheimers in that man at that time. He fires facts and figures off the top of his head as well as Clinton ever did.
Here’s an interview with television correspondents from the same period: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/53184i.htm
And for Guinistasia, here’s a transcript of remarks he made to reporters in 1981, two years before he was alleged to believe that the Soviet Union didn’t have land-based missiles: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1981/111881a.htm
In that transcript, he describes Soviet forces in some detail, including reciting numbers of tanks, missiles by type (SS-20, SS-4, etc). In another unscripted question later on about the B-1 bomber, Reagan recites from memory facts about the bomber’s range, payload, cost, operational requirements, etc.
Can I get a retraction again?
If you need more proof, here’s what he said in an unscripted interview in 1982, a full year before he apparently didn’t know the Soviets had land-based missiles:
Really, these claims flying around now are just so ridiculous. What amazes me is that anyone who actually lived through those years would make such claims about Reagan. Arms Reduction was THE topic of the day. All presidential candidates knew exact numbers of forces on each side. They knew details of force deployments, R&D, possible treaties on the table, you name it. EVERY press conference or interview those days had to touch on arms issues. Reagan could quote the exact numbers of Soviet forces by heart long before he was president, and so could the other candidates. That’s why I asked for a cite. It’s a ridiculous claim.
You know, I found my research tonight fascinating. I have high regard for Reagan, and even I have forgotten just how sharp that guy was. Go to this link: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/rrpubpap.asp at the Reagan Library, and just browse through there. See if the man you hear talking through all those interviews matches your preconceptions.
Something else I found interesting: Just how available Reagan was. He did radio interviews, TV interviews, zillions of press conferences, radio addresses, you name it. That’s mighty dangerous for a politician (which is why GW Bush is kept so protected, and why Clinton drove his handlers nuts by stopping to talk with people unscripted), because there are so many opportunities to screw up. But that’s why he was ‘The Great Communicator’. He made himself more available to the public than Clinton did. His political advisors had to have great faith in his ability to recite facts and speak logically in impromptu situations. And sorry, dumb guys just can’t cut it.
Oh, and BTW, Reagan wasn’t officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s until 1995, seven years after he was out of office.
“Stockman’s point wasn’t that Reagan was stupid,…”
Not stupid exactly but certainly unclear about the details of his own programme and uninvolved in the nitty-gritty decisions.
“Reagan had a solid
grasp of economics. He had a degree in it.”
He had a degree from some obscure college where IIRC he was a C student. Not much evidence of anything. And I am guessing he got his degrees in the 20’s when many American universities and colleges didn’t teach analytic economics not even the kind that existed at that time. Economics course were more like surveys on current business institutions not much use in understanding economic policy issues of the 80’s.
And anyway the basic ideas in macroeconomics were really developed in the 30’s and beyond.
As it happens I have a copy of Stockman’s book as well. For a quick guide to Reagan’s intellectual inadequacies the index is most useful.
Reagan Ronald W:
his knowledge and thinking based on anecdotes,
lack of comprehenshion of fiscal crisis,
limited grasp of economics,
etc.
Happy reading…
I’ll go back and read it. In the meantime, why don’t you follow the link above and go read what Reagan actually said about economics? You’ll find hundreds of examples, unscripted and off-the-cuff.
I’m sure his analysis won’t match yours, and I’m sure you’ll find some errors in there. But on balance, I think he had a better grasp of economics than any president since, including Clinton. Go read what he had to say about foreign trade, for example, and how the balance of payments is skewed because it doesn’t count for capital investment in the United States. That’s a concept that very few people understand, outside of economists.
Okay, perhaps you are right on the missiles quote. I’m still skeptical, but for now, until I see further proof, I shall withdraw that argument.
I’m currently reading the following speech about Central America:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/32484a.htm
NOW…I may not have read the whole thing yet, however, I will tell you that my advisor is VERY well-versed on the US and Central America. In addition to the classes I took with him on the subject, I have read a few books, and studied a bit on our policies on Latin America, and the political climate there. I have here the book Inevitable Revolutions: the United States in Central America by Walter LaFeber.
-LeFeber, 287
The chaos over THAT episode was so severe a new election had to be held, with the Christian Democrat party winning-I believe Duarte won again, but I’ll look it up-I have to leave for work in about 20 minutes.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/33182a.htm
THIS was Reagan’s take on those elections.
-LeFeber, 277
And I can say that Reagan was DEAD wrong that El Salvador was allowing “free elections.” Only a few years before, the military government had had Archbiship Oscar Romero killed, for speaking out against them. This is the regime that killed the two Maryknoll nuns along with lay missionary Jean Donavan.
Oh, and the following speech:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/91882b.htm
Does not sound so brilliant to me. It is not true that no one is allowed to pray in school, on their own time, on their own initiative-you just cannot lead anyone else who does not WANT to prayer, or make a policy of establishing religion in schools.
a page on Central America and the US.
http://orion.it.luc.edu/~eschwa1/
Guinistasia, you’re changing the parameters again. Now you are are arguing that the administration’s policies were flawed. That is a completely different debate. And, you may be surprised to learn that I would probably agree with you on many of your criticisms.
Every presidential administration has done stupid things. Anyone who blindly agrees with everything a president does just because he is a member of their political party is a sycophant. I could give you a laundry list of things I think Reagan was flat-out wrong about, starting with Iran-Contra, the Beirut bombing, his handling of the AARP, etc.
But what we are talking about here is the assertion that Reagan himself was some out-of-touch, doddering old fool suffering from Alzheimers and propped up by his advisors. Liberals have been making this charge about Reagan for 20 years now. And it’s completely false. He may have delegated too much, he may have been blinded by his own ideology at times, but that says nothing about his intelligence. Reagan had an above-average intelligence, and more importantly he was actually VERY knowledgeable about political issues of the day. Far more so than the last three Presidents we had, including Clinton. Clinton is a brilliant man, but has amazing blind spots.
I think any honest reading of how Reagan spoke when he didn’t have a script, of the facts and figures he always had at his fingertips, of the complexity of his speech patterns, will show that he was far from stupid, and amazingly well informed.
But the difference between me and you is that I can disagree with someone while recognizing that they have admirable qualities. But Liberals always seem to go personal. Reagan was stupid, Bush is stupid, Quayle was stupid, Bush is bought by big oil, you name it. You can’t seem to disagree with someone without attacking them.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. One difference between liberals and conservatives is that that conservatives think liberals have bad policies, but liberals think conservatives are bad people.
As for the school prayer quote, I’m afraid that you’re wrong again. What Reagan was talking about was schools disallowing private assembly for religious purposes. In the case of the cafeteria, some kids would gather together in a corner on their own and pray. At that time, schools were also banning privately organized religious clubs. Some kids started a bible study after-hours (a PRIVATE bible study - they weren’t attempting to preach to other kids or anything. They were just using an empty classroom for their own activity, just like any of the other school clubs were), and were kicked off the property. At that time, schools had gone WAY overboard in trying to remain secular. Reagan was pointing out that when a school stops a child from engaging in a personal religious practice, THAT is a violation of the separation of church and state.
So now that we’ve shown that Reagan was not wrong about polluting trees, and that far from not knowing that the Soviets had land-based missiles it turns out that he was actually exceedingly well informed about the Soviet military, including knowing specific details of model numbers and deployments of missiles by category, reductions on the table in various treaties, and even the operational performance of bombers and tanks, can we finally put to rest the notion that he was an idiot?