As a married couple, they were as devoted to each other as any two people I’ve ever seen. That love being ravaged by Alzheimers, gets me right “here.” I don’t wish a death like that on anyone. And I feel very sad when someone loses a spouse.
:rolleyes:
Can we put an end to this “tough macho leader” garbage? It doesn’t take any skill to “[stand] for what he thought was right” and refuse to “bend under pressure” – my four-year-old does the same thing when he doesn’t want to go to bed, and there’s nothing noble or superhuman about that.
A wise man is one who looks at the times and the circumstances, and takes a stance accordingly. “Sticking to your guns” in all situations is the hallmark of a fool, and political worship of such a fool just makes you look even more foolish.
Oh, we’re talking about George W. Bush now?
I’m not surprised at all, it’s an outcome I’d expect. Democratic Underground is a political board, pure and simple, and it tolerate BS like any other political board. The Dope tries to be bullshit-free (obviously, it’s a work in progress) and would tend to be prone to avoid posts that spew empty sentiments, however nice or appropriate.
Uncommon Sense:
Damn, don’t you remember Beirut? He folded faster than a pair of twos with everyone going all in.
He could turn a purty phrase into a sound bite and he could nap better than any president in the past one hundred years. Until, that is, the present occupant of the Oval Office showed up on the scene. He didn’t save the world. Hell, he didn’t even save most Americans. He didn’t single handedly bring the Soviet Bear to his knees and he didn’t bend the economy to his will. Being an arrogant bastard did nothing but scare the squirts out of a whole lotta West Germans. And even though Americans thought they were better off doesn’t mean a fucking thing. An awful lot of people thought that Hussein was in on 9/11.
Well, thank the fates that you’re not doing that. . .
I’m sorry EC, I don’t seem to catch what you’re trying to say. Are you suggesting that the D.U., in it’s attempt to reverse the travesty of electoral politics that they found the 2000 election to be and to ensure that whatever inhuman and malevolent forces there are who pull the marionette strings of that soulless puppet known as GWB will never again be able to subvert the collective will of the American people, Diebold be dammed, are somehow more prone to spew bs and “empty sentiments” like it might be unseemly for thinking people to dance on the grave of an ideological foe before said foe is actually buried?
Isn’t it a little ironic that the death of a champion of small government is going to cost the nation more then 500 million dollars in paid leave alone, by some estimates, paid for by people who WON’T get the day off?
Yeah. You have to admire the right of the president to call for a National Everyone Take Pause and Reflect on How Great My Political Party is, in an election year. Fucking self-serving asshole. We should have a day of National refelction on how bad Reagan was for the American character.
I would suspect that that board does not contain the hagiographic nonsense that this one does.
Not in the real world.
According to your link, there was (ignoring the “cumulative percentage” red herring), a $197.3 billion discrepancy between the proposed budgets and the actual budgets over the entire eight year period. However, during Mr. Reagan’s term, the U.S. debt increased from $997.9 billion (1981, or $1,142 billion in 1982) to $2,602.3 billion (1988, or $2,857.4 in 1989).
In other words, Reagan’s proposed budgets would have increased the debt to roughly 88% of their eventual record highs, even if Congress had passed exactly his requests.
The legend of the “responsible Mr. Reagan” being overruled by the “irresponsible” Congress is pure fantasy. Congress certainly bears the burden for their actions, but Reagan was quite complicit, frequently (and successfully) going directly to the U.S. voters to demand that they urge their congresscritters to pass his legislation.
And as to this comment on the linked site:
I have never heard that Reagan asked for more than what Congress wanted to provide. I have frequently heard the canard that Reagan asked for responsible spending and that Congress blew his limits. The numbers show pretty clearly that both Congress and the White House were quite willing to spend the country under the table.
Don’t worry, thanks to the economic policies of GWB there will be plenty of people not working on Friday, or any other day for that matter.
The El Mozote Massacre …
http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/el_mozin.htm
"It was in the month of December 1981
Conducted by the Yankees’ Atlacatl Battalion
What a bitter Christmas for the children of my village
They don’t get to play with toys, only the bullets and mortars."
I always thought we were the good guys.
No disrespect to President Reagan himself, but I would politely suggest that the criteria I’ve bolded above is not, in isolation, a valid criteria for assessing how good a national leader is. As an extreme example of how poor such criteria really is, I would note that most people in Germany in 1932 would have made the same statement.
My point here is that Ronald Reagan is often credited with things which likely would have happened regardless. I’m firmly of the belief that Mikhail Gorbachev would have come along regardless of who the US President was, and it should also be noted that it was Margaret Thatcher, not Ronald Reagan who first opined that Secretary Gorbachev “is a man with whom we can do business”.
Also, for all of the assertions that President Reagan returned the USA to a warm, cozy, feel good kinda vibe - let’s take a pause to remember the ugly dirty side of the 1980’s too. An explosion in drug use, and an explosion in corporate impropriety. It behoves us to remind ourselves of the message attached to Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”.
It’s my considered opinion that the USA didn’t improve under President Reagan. I know, I know - it’s only an opinion - however, I base my opinion on what COULD have been achieved at a fiscal level, especially regarding those American citizens who were not in the middle or upper echelons of income.
Same time those four missionaries were raped and murdered by the Salvadoran military. Three of them were nuns, one a lay missionary.
Then Jean Kirkpatrick said they were subversives, and Al Haig suggested that the women were FIRING at the military. Yep, those damn pistol-packing nuns.
:rolleyes:
Yep, great idea to support these people. Remember, “Be a patriot! Kill a priest!”
Let’s not forget the ridiculous number (130+) of Reagan Administration officials who left office amidst scandal, corruption or prosecution. And yet somehow, Reagan himself emerged untarnished.
From a letter written by Mikhail Gorbachev and printed in the New York Times today:
That’s a slam dunk XJETGIRLX
Thank you for the quote there.
I’m happy to concede that what I’m about to say is conjecture, but I would contend that the USSR was going broke even before 1980. No country can continue to spend 20+% of their GDP propping up a military industrial complex as WELL as sponsoring puppet states left right and center.
The USSR would have backed down sooner or later regardless in my opinion.
Reagan’s first secretary of the interior, James Gaius Watt holds a special place in the hearts of many environmentalists. A feeling which secretary Watt reciprocated:
Of course, the lefties finally nailed Watt for his insensitivity rather than his contempt for the environment:
It’s polite, eulogistic drivel. Big deal.
Aww, come ON! If that ain’t a valid cite I don’t know what the hell else is!