# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/61 "2015-11-17T00:44:43Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > …so does 2004 prove that a President doesn’t have to be “good” or “popular” to get reelected? I make no claim as to whether anyone was a good president. Just pointing out that the number by which someone gets re-elected is not really a qualifier as to the quality of their administrations. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/62 "2015-11-17T00:48:46Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > And during that time I trust you worked to unseat the Democrats in congress that voted for those policies? In the 1980’s I was a foolish young libertarian who believed in voodoo economics. I actually voted for Reagan in 1984. It was a stupid thing to do, because he was a crappy President, but I was 20 years old at the time and didn’t know any better. Who did you vote for in 1984? ---
**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 17, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/63 "2015-11-17T00:53:27Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > And during that time I trust you worked to unseat the Democrats in congress that voted for those policies? Is that the measure now, someone has to actively work to unseat politicians in congress who vote against something they want? Otherwise they’re hypocrites? Doesn’t that strike you as a bit silly? I know you think that Reagan can’t be blamed for his policies being enacted, but I think you’re stretching a bit far in order to spread that blame around. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/64 "2015-11-17T01:20:50Z")
A New York Times article relevant to the Alzheimer’s aspect of the OP: > **[Parsing Ronald Reagan’s Words for Early Signs of Alzheimer’s (Published 2015)](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/health/parsing-ronald-reagans-words-for-early-signs-of-alzheimers.html)** > > Researchers have found subtle indications of dementia in transcripts of the former president’s news conferences. ---
**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 17, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/65 "2015-11-17T01:56:50Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > In the 1980’s I was a foolish young libertarian who believed in voodoo economics. > > I actually voted for Reagan in 1984. It was a stupid thing to do, because he was a crappy President, but I was 20 years old at the time and didn’t know any better. > > Who did you vote for in 1984? He certainly had his faults, but I’d rate him a solid B in the scope of history, and at the time he was exactly what we needed. I got up early in 1980 to be the first in line to vote for Reagan. I was 20 years old, and the economy sucked. I dropped out of college to work because I got married and didn’t have the dough to go to school and support a wife. Except there were few jobs. 300 adults would line up for a part-time job at the Dairy Queen because their unemployment benefits ran out. I had to cling to the shitty job I had gotten and my wife put in long hours managing restaurants her old man owned. In 1984 things were a lot better, at least around here they were. Why on Earth would I have voted for Jimmy Carters vice President when Jimmy Carter sucked? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/66 "2015-11-17T05:57:51Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Until W came along, Reagan was the worst president in history. First of all, we cannot overlook the fact that he committed treason in order to steal the election against Carter. His people undermined Carter’s hostage negotiations, convincing the mullahs that they would get a better deal with Reagan. The Iranians were well compensated for their complicity, getting weapons in the Iran-Contra felonious conspiracy. I haven’t seen any good evidence that Reagan actively conspired to keep the hostages in Iran. He saw the hostage crisis as a millstone around Carter’s neck, and it suited his purposes to just stay silent on the matter. And the hostage takers didn’t need Reagan’s encouragement to screw Carter, they loathed him. On the other hand, you’ll still hear Republican give Reagan the credit for getting the hostages released on the day of his inauguration, which is also totally bogus. ---
**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 18, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/67 "2015-11-18T01:32:03Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Just pointing out that the number by which someone gets re-elected is not really a qualifier as to the quality of their administrations. Indeed. Those mistakenly pointing out that Reagan must have been good since he was so popular are akin to those idiot Christians who try to claim Christianity must be the one true religion since it’s the one with the most followers. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/68 "2015-11-18T03:07:56Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I haven’t seen any good evidence that Reagan actively conspired to keep the hostages in Iran. He saw the hostage crisis as a millstone around Carter’s neck, and it suited his purposes to just stay silent on the matter. And the hostage takers didn’t need Reagan’s encouragement to screw Carter, they loathed him. > > On the other hand, you’ll still hear Republican give Reagan the credit for getting the hostages released on the day of his inauguration, which is also totally bogus. Depends on what you call [good evidence.](http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/shocking-new-evidence-reveals-depths-treason-and-treachery-watergate-and-iran) > [@](#): > > …Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir made in a 1993 interview in Tel Aviv. Shamir said he had read the 1991 book, October Surprise, by Carter’s former National Security Council aide Gary Sick, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980 hostage negotiations to disrupt Carter’s reelection. > > With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, “What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?” > > “Of course, it was,” Shamir responded without hesitation. “It was.” > > And, there were plenty of other corroborating statements as well. In 1996, for instance, while former President Carter was meeting with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Arafat in Gaza City, Arafat tried to confess his role in the Republican maneuvering to block Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations. > > “There is something I want to tell you,” Arafat said, addressing Carter in the presence of historian Douglas Brinkley. “You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with an arms deal [for the PLO] if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until after the [U.S. presidential] election,” Arafat said, according to Brinkley’s article in the fall 1996 issue of Diplomatic Quarterly. > > … > > In a Christian Science Monitor commentary about the movie “Argo,” Bani-Sadr wrote that “Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation … which prevented the attempts by myself and then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 U.S. presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.” ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/69 "2015-11-18T16:31:23Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > A New York Times article relevant to the Alzheimer’s aspect of the OP: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/health/parsing-ronald-reagans-words-for-early-signs-of-alzheimers.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/health/parsing-ronald-reagans-words-for-early-signs-of-alzheimers.html) Of course, all the White House doctors who looked after his health during his tenure said [he showed no signs of Alzheimer’s](http://www.alzfoundation.org/president-ronald-reagan/), but what do they know. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > First of all, we cannot overlook the fact that he committed treason in order to steal the election against Carter. Of course, the Senate, the House of Representatives, _Newsweek_, _The New Republic_, and _The Village Voice_ all determined that it wasn’t a fact, but what do they know. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/70 "2015-11-18T16:57:21Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > So what? How, exactly, did President Reagan run up huge deficits and give tax breaks to the rich all by himself? The Democrats in the House and the Senate had to have a hand in it. Correct? Look, this is a hijack – because in this thread, we are not debating whether Congress in the Reagan years was a good or bad Congress. That would be a different thread. We are debating whether Reagan was a good or bad POTUS. If a bad idea **originated** in Congress and Reagan got on board with it, that would still go on the bad-POTUS side of the scale. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/71 "2015-11-18T16:58:42Z")
> [@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. Have you got any actual facts or arguments in support of the above? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/72 "2015-11-18T17:05:42Z")
[RatWiki sez:](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#Other_tomfoolery) > [@](#): > > **Other tomfoolery** > > With 138 officials implicated, the Reagan administration went down as one of the most corrupt in history.[14] The stuff that never stuck to Teflon Ron include: > ##Iran-Contra > ##Rigging HUD loans, for which 16 members of the White House and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were convicted. > ##St. Ronnie’s Chief of Staff and Press Secretary were fined and probated for illegal lobbying activities. > ##“Sewergate,” which funneled EPA money into Republican campaigns. Twenty EPA higher-ups were removed from office. > ##Inslaw Affair in which the Department of Justice was accused of pirating software. Never investigated. > > Reagan was a particular favorite trope of celebrated futurist author J.G. Ballard. A chapter in his 1969 modernist novel _The Atrocity Exhibition_ was entitled _Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan,_ and saw Ballard successfully prosecuted for obscenity in a UK court. The chapter was written as a kind bizarre public relations study from some crackpot think tank, and Ballard once had copies of it distributed to delegates at a Republican conference, who did not seem to realize it was a piece of satire. Considering what would come next, Ballard may have been a bit too early. > > One of his more long-lasting actions was to appoint leaders of a conservative lobbying firm called ALEC into his White House Task Force on Federalism; the ALEC goons developed and implemented state policies that led to lower taxes and less regulation on businesses. Now in the bed of the Republican apparatus, ALEC won support from major corporate and individual donors, who pushed through their policies on the state level. Such policies advocated by ALEC include voter disenfranchisement, for-profit schools, private prisons, payday loan companies, Stand Your Ground bills, and restricting union influence. [15] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/73 "2015-11-18T17:09:20Z")
[Also:](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#The_Angel_of_Death) > [@](#): > > **The Angel of Death** > > > [@](#): > > > > “Sick unfortunates.” > > —What you definitely want the “leader of the free world” to say during a global health crisis.[16] > > Reagan arguably helped cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens — if not tens of millions of people worldwide — by vehemently ignoring the growth of a new epidemic that occurred during his time in office: AIDS.[17] He allowed Nelson Mandela, for no reason other than irrational hatred of black people, to be targeted as a terrorist threat,[18] and when Congress passed an anti-apartheid bill, he vetoed it, if for no other reason than to please racist donors.[19] (They would override his veto with a supermajority, the only time in the 20th century a foreign policy veto was quashed.[20]) And it would not be the only time he would pander to them.[21] > > He saw it perfectly acceptable to support a plethora of bloodthirsty, murdering dictators and terrorists, so long as they were fighting his childish vendetta against those evil commies.[22] This involved playing pals with Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Saddam Hussein in Iraq (against Iran… the irony, it burns), Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Jonas Savimbi in Angola, Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala, and the junta in El Salvador.[23] And he also authorized billions in cash and weapons in Afghanistan which got picked up by a fellow known to be the son of a man named Laden. > > His bloodlust led to the budget cutting of non-military programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs, and the EPA. While he protected entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, his administration attempted to purge many people with disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls, which is effectively a cut as well. > > Murder — it has many faces, and is most ugly when its face is power. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/74 "2015-11-18T17:42:04Z")
Right, right - someone who asks for evidence and then produces a RationalWiki cite. 😃 Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/75 "2015-11-18T18:12:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Right, right - someone who asks for evidence and then produces a RationalWiki cite. > > 😃 > > Regards, > Shodan [shrug] It’s not Wikipedia, it makes no claim of objectivity and admits to bias (that is, pro-rationality bias) – but, everything is footnoted. Is there anything in the above that you care to dispute, or spin differently? ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/76 "2015-11-18T23:51:11Z")
[quote=“Shodan, post:69, topic:737495”] Of course, all the White House doctors who looked after his health during his tenure said [he showed no signs of Alzheimer’s](http://www.alzfoundation.org/president-ronald-reagan/), but what do they know. I am not sure in what spirit this comment was intended, but if it was intended in the same spirit as the parallel comment you make in the second part of your post — I suggest you read the article and you will notice that your point about the White House doctors is made in the second paragraph of the article, and is indeed part of the main thrust of the story, which is that transcripts of Reagan’s speeches may one day enable an earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s than is even today possible. The points are also explicitly made in the article that the peculiarities in Reagan’s speech, such as an increasing tendency to substitute non-specific words like “thing” for more specific terms, are not necessarily evidence that Reagan suffered from cognitive impairment severe enough to affect his ability to make decisions, or indeed even that those peculiarities in his speech were necessarily evidence of cognitive impairment at all. (The article suggests it may have been a conscious stylistic decision.) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/77 "2015-11-19T12:33:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [shrug] It’s not Wikipedia, it makes no claim of objectivity and admits to bias (that is, pro-rationality bias) – but, everything is footnoted. Is there anything in the above that you care to dispute, or spin differently? I would. The claim is made by the text that Reagan allowed the designation of Mandela as a terrorist for “no other reason” than irrational hatred of black people. I dispute that claim. Do you endorse it? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/78 "2015-11-19T14:01:11Z")
In terms of job creation it’s hard to beat Reagan’s record. In one month alone(September 1983) the US economy created 1.1 million jobs. If employment is a reasonable barometer of economic wellbeing then your average American was doing rather well under Reagan. His Presidency should be judged on much more than this but economically his record was impressive. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/79 "2015-11-19T14:21:34Z")
Hijack: I’m sorry, but this thread is persistent, and every time I see the title, I hear it in Billie Burke’s high-pitched Glinda the Good Witch of the North Voice: “Well, you crushed Carter the bad POTUS of the South, and now the Munchkins want to know – Are you a Good POTUS, or a Bad POTUS?” ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/80 "2015-11-19T14:57:04Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > In terms of job creation it’s hard to beat Reagan’s record. In one month alone(September 1983) the US economy created 1.1 million jobs. If employment is a reasonable barometer of economic wellbeing then your average American was doing rather well under Reagan. His Presidency should be judged on much more than this but economically his record was impressive. I would attribute the economic turnaround more to the vast leaps of productivity made by American business. We should mostly thank Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495.md?page=3) [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=5)