# Reagan good or bad POTUS? The Will-O'Reilly feud resurrects the question of his legacy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495 "2015-11-13T20:04:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/1 "2015-11-13T20:04:39Z")
[The feud is discussed in this CS thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18856873#post18856873) In a nutshell, in his new book, [_Killing Reagan_](http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Reagan-Violent-Assault-Presidency/dp/1627792414) (why **is** the man so death-obsessed?!), Bill O’Reilly asserts that Reagan was effectively senile for much of his presidency, and speculates that the assassination attempt he survived accelerated the progress of the Alzheimer’s that was diagnosed after he left office. He also asserts it got so bad that Reagan’s staff considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. George Will accuses O’Reilly of not being a real historian and of having done no research cited in the book that backs up his claims and never having interviewed any of Reagan’s close staffers or looked at any materials in the Reagan Library. O’Reilly fires back that Will is an “elitist” and a “Reagan loyalist” and an all-around poopyhead, and so it goes. Still, O’Reilly could be right about the above, if not right for the right reasons. Senility would explain a lot about how many flat-wrong things Reagan said while POTUS, his out-of-touchness with the facts. Then again, that’s not the only explanation possible – the most informative and insightful book about Reagan I’ve ever read is [_The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan,_](http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Bridge-Fall-Nixon-Reagan/dp/1476782423/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447020788&sr=1-2&keywords=invisible+bridge) by Rick Perlstein. In Perlstein’s account, Reagan **always,** from childhood on, thought more in terms of black-and-white moral narratives than facts. (Also, he was always a self-aggrandizer, back to his days as a lifeguard. He was frustrated that he never could seem to reach “star” status in Hollywood, despite having all apparent qualifications for it and paying his dues in so many films. And he was an astonishingly cold and indifferent father.) What’s more significant, however, is that this feud raises once again the question of whether Reagan was a good POTUS or a bad one. And that goes to the heart of the legitimacy and value of modern movement conservatism, being so much identified with Reagan’s legacy as it is. And that’s what has George Will so pissed. [Sean Illing writes:](http://www.salon.com/2015/11/13/the_real_reason_george_will_is_fuming_at_bill_oreilly_the_fox_newser_told_the_truth_about_ronald_reagan/) > [@](#): > > But Will hits on a fundamental truth about Reagan’s reputation. Conservatism, as a governing philosophy, continues to resonate because of Reagan’s perceived success. But the truth is that Reagan was neither conservative (not in the classical sense, at least) nor successful. Although Republicans never acknowledge it, Reagan left the country significantly worse than he found it, and if they want to own Reagan, the man, they have to own his record as well. > > Reagan, the father of contemporary conservatism, tripled the federal budget deficit. During his tenure, our national debt shot up to $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Conservatives claim tax cuts grow the private sector and increase revenue, but Reagan tried this in his first year and the opposite occurred, which is why he raised taxes substantially the following year (and 10 other times over the course of his two terms). Unemployment also spiked to 10.8 percent shortly after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, which shows, if nothing else, that job growth doesn’t follow axiomatically from tax breaks. > > And there’s much more. > > Reagan gave amnesty to over 3 million undocumented immigrants, which is anathema to Republican politics today. Reagan funded the Mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan, which later became the Taliban. Reagan vowed to shrink the size of government, but spending skyrocketed during his administrations. He even tried to privatize Social Security, which would have been a disaster for working class Americans, had he succeeded. > > All told, Reagan’s policies didn’t shrink the government or increase prosperity for the middle class. On the contrary, they made government more bloated, more defense-oriented, more oligarchic, and less democratic. Conservatives never reckon with these facts because the ahistorical canonization of Reagan prevents them from doing so. Reagan has become nothing more than a juvenile projection, a malleable myth for a movement in denial. Is he right? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/2 "2015-11-13T20:36:37Z")
> [@](#): > > But Will hits on a fundamental truth about Reagan’s reputation. Conservatism, as a governing philosophy, continues to resonate because of Reagan’s perceived success. But the truth is that Reagan was neither conservative (not in the classical sense, at least) nor successful. Although Republicans never acknowledge it, Reagan left the country significantly worse than he found it, and if they want to own Reagan, the man, they have to own his record as well. The notion that Reagan wasn’t successful, or that he left the country worse off, is not a fundamental truth. It is, in fact, so far off the mark as to be laughable. LIberals tried this same thing in 1984. “Who are you going to believe - me, or your own lying eyes?” With the observed results. But by all means keeping telling yourself that. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/3 "2015-11-13T20:41:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The notion that Reagan wasn’t successful, or that he left the country worse off, is not a fundamental truth. It is, in fact, so far off the mark as to be laughable. > > LIberals tried this same thing in 1984. “Who are you going to believe - me, or your own lying eyes?” With the observed results. > > But by all means keeping telling yourself that. > > Regards, > Shodan You won’t mind if I get a second opinion from reality, will you? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/4 "2015-11-13T20:46:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The notion that Reagan wasn’t successful, or that he left the country worse off, is not a fundamental truth. It is, in fact, so far off the mark as to be laughable. > > LIberals tried this same thing in 1984. “Who are you going to believe - me, or your own lying eyes?” With the observed results. > > But by all means keeping telling yourself that. > > Regards, > Shodan Well, many of the wealthy are laughing all the way to the bank they own. (And they got a bail out to keep it.) > **[Voodoo Trickle Down Be Damned](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voodoo-trickle-down-be-da_b_6542106)** > > Reaganomics, the plot to appease the rich and condemn the rest, got its comeuppance last week in President Obama's State of the Union speech. The president asked: "Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well?" > [@](#): > > Reaganomics, the plot to appease the rich and condemn the rest, got its comeuppance last week in President Obama’s State of the Union speech. > > The president asked: “Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well?” > > That’s the trickle down economy he’s talking about. And when he said, “spectacularly well,” that understated the great fortune of the very few. Oxfam, the international federation working to end poverty, reported just before the speech that if nothing changes over the next two years, the top 1 percent will hoard more wealth than that held by the entire remaining 99 percent of humans on earth. > [@](#): > > It would be against his economic religion, that being Trickle-Downism, to lift the cap on Social Security so that the rich pay on every penny they make, just like the working poor and middle class do. If the wealthy paid Social Security taxes on their earnings above the $120,000 cap, no one would be talking about cutting Social Security payments to disabled veterans. > > Boehner and his followers claim the American people are on his side. He’s just wrong. The polling numbers on President Obama’s State of the Union Speech outlining middle class economics illustrate that. > > In a CNN poll, 72 percent said Obama’s policies would move the country in the right direction. In an MSNBC poll, 68 percent said Obama focused on the right things, while only 32 percent said they believed Republicans care about the right things. > > Americans believe trickle down economics have condemned them to flat wages and foreclosed futures. They want a new morning in America where middle class economics places them, the vast majority, first. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/5 "2015-11-13T20:53:16Z")
A mixed bag. He did some good stuff, he did some not so good stuff. What he did do was to take a country very down in the dumps of “malaise” and restore confidence through the sheer force of his sunny personality. And, that does in fact have an effect on the economy. I love the Saturday Night Live bit where he is in public a slow moving “amiable dunce”, and a [brilliant strategist behind closed doors](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/president-reagan-mastermind/n9509). ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/6 "2015-11-13T20:57:03Z")
Reagan’s administration did push the vapidly stupid economic policy, and distrust of government that has hung around the GOP’s necks for the last few decades. He promoted dumb idea, and it lives on beyond him, making lives worse, increasing human misery. Conservatives believe the government is out to get them, that historically low taxes are tyranny, and that regulating smog is a communist plot. I’d say he’s a failure as a president, at least at that level. He’s not an outright failure, he did good things, but he did a lot of damage. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/7 "2015-11-13T21:05:08Z")
I think you have to put Reagan in the context of his time. Reagan was a great leader and visionary, but probably middle of the pack on economic and administrative management in terms presidential rankings. Where Reagan was strong was what was needed in the 80s. Americans seemed to have been a lot more confident and united then. There has not been a mention of the cold war yet, but he was instrumental in ending it. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/8 "2015-11-13T21:11:03Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > What he did do was to take a country very down in the dumps of “malaise” and restore confidence through the sheer force of his sunny personality. And, that does in fact have an effect on the economy. Pardon me if I’m being whooshed here, but I don’t think sunny personality has much to do with it at all. The performance of the economy during his term looks exactly as you would expect if you were presented with a graphic economic history through January 1981, given a pencil, and told: “Draw where you think this line should go, extrapolating from historical cycles.” Occam’s razor suggests Reagan caught a wave by being elected in 1981. A bit grainy, but see misery index (unemployment + inflation) by president: [http://thomaspmbarnett.com/storage/misery-index2.png?\_\_SQUARESPACE\_CACHEVERSION=1276720883770](http://thomaspmbarnett.com/storage/misery-index2.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1276720883770) And I’m not saying this to diss Reagan per se. But if you think Reagan had something big to do with the economy in the 1980s, you have to believe that Clinton was the greatest economic genius who ever lived; which I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/9 "2015-11-13T21:11:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The notion that Reagan wasn’t successful, or that he left the country worse off, is not a fundamental truth. It is, in fact, so far off the mark as to be laughable. > > LIberals tried this same thing in 1984. “Who are you going to believe - me, or your own lying eyes?” With the observed results. > > But by all means keeping telling yourself that. > > Regards, > Shodan Then, how do you respond to the specific points Illing makes? ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/10 "2015-11-13T21:13:02Z")
By the way, can anyone explain to me what O’Reilly is up to? I don’t see how he benefits in any way from undermining Reagan’s legacy given his target (Reagan-idolizing) audience. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/11 "2015-11-13T21:17:32Z")
He wants Jon Stewart to finally like him? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/12 "2015-11-13T21:18:01Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > There has not been a mention of the cold war yet, but he was instrumental in ending it. Well, there were a lot of factors there. Perhaps Reagan’s arms buildup put a strain on the Soviets’ budget while they tried to keep up, but falling oil prices probably played a much bigger role in that. More than anything else, however, it was Gorbachev’s _glasnost_ policy – once the people were free to criticize the Soviet Communist system, it became apparent that nobody really believed in it any more; and an idea-state can survive only so long as the people believe in it or at least appear to. I recall a review by the late John J. Reilly of Harry Turtledove’s AH novel _In the Presence of Mine Enemies_ (set in Nazi Germany in the 1990s) (can’t link to the review, the website went dark after he died) – he remarked that what limits the life of a revolutionary-ideological state is that “eventually, even the secret police lose interest.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/13 "2015-11-13T21:21:17Z")
> [@Donald\_Rump](#): > > By the way, can anyone explain to me what O’Reilly is up to? I don’t see how he benefits in any way from undermining Reagan’s legacy given his target (Reagan-idolizing) audience. He’s trying to sell his book, that’s what he’s up to. He’s more of a huckster than an ideologue, unlike Will. Not that he isn’t committed in his way, but perhaps he thinks movement conservatism does not really need Reaganolatry any more. When you think about it, a movement skeptical of government as such does not essentially need a get-things-done sort of POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/14 "2015-11-13T21:34:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recall a review by the late John J. Reilly of Harry Turtledove’s AH novel _In the Presence of Mine Enemies_ (set in Nazi Germany in the 1990s) (can’t link to the review, the website went dark after he died) . . . Actually, [I found it anyway](http://www.changingthetimes.net/bookreviews/in_the_presence_of_mine_enemies_.htm), on a different site. > [@](#): > > Oswald Spengler, to take my favorite macrohistorian, was often wrong, but about the Nazis he was mostly right. He understood that the movement was in many ways simply incompetent. He saw them as nothing more than an incident in the era of Western modernity, an era which he expected to last through the 21st century. The end of the story for the modern world might, he thought, be a new Roman Empire. If it materialized, the sun would set on the West in a kind of political and spiritual peace. The alternative, as he saw it, was mere collapse and barbarian chaos. In either case, he had a lively sense in the 1930s that the end of history was still many generations away, and that the Nazis were dangerously deluded about their own importance. > > That, really, is the problem with most stories based on unbroken Nazi success. The premise takes the Nazis at their word about the importance of the movement, and credits them with the ability to make a peaceful desert of a world that should still have several generations of tumult remaining to it. This is anachronistic both forward and backward. It is unreasonable to expect to see Spengler’s imperium mundi in any timeline much before the 22nd century. It is equally unreasonable to see the mesmerizing power that political ideology held in the 1920s and '30s transposed to the early 21st century. Even Philip Dick, in The Man in the High Castle, probably stretched a point when he put a world of fanatical Nazis in the 1960s. Certainly we know that, long before the Communist regime collapsed, there were few real Marxists in the Soviet Union. > > Popular uprisings rarely overthrow ideologies; rather, even the secret police eventually lose interest. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/15 "2015-11-13T23:05:35Z")
I must say, Will and O’Reilly are giving us the most entertaining catfight one can present without a tank of Jell-O and a couple of bi-curious supermodels. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/16 "2015-11-13T23:28:32Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > …a couple of bi-curious supermodels. Will and O’Reilly may not be supermodels. But we can’t know they’re not bi-curious. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/17 "2015-11-13T23:42:40Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Will and O’Reilly may not be supermodels. But we can’t know they’re not bi-curious. And the way they’re acting lately, you wanna tell 'em, get a room, guys! ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/18 "2015-11-14T01:39:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Bill O’Reilly asserts that Reagan was effectively senile for much of his presidency I’m friends with a gentleman who was in DOD and traveled with the President many times during the early-mid 80’s. He is a conservative Republican, and was a supporter of Reagans policies. But he told me basically the same thing years ago. And it was based on his own observations and experiences, not something somebody else told him. So as much as I find O’Reilly to be a hot headed gas bag, I have cause to believe he’s correct on this. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/19 "2015-11-14T01:44:25Z")
Reagan was a great President but his flaws should be well known and I’m not sure why Will is so mad at O’Reilly. Will himself was often frustrated with Reagan’s simplemindedness. What Reagan did do was change minds so that Bill Clinton could complete the Reagan Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/20 "2015-11-14T01:58:21Z")
Reagan was a shit president who seemed completely divorced from reality. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495.md?page=2)