Today is Ronald Reagan’s birthday. He would have been 99.
In 1984 he won 49 states and received 58.8% of the popular vote. In today’s society, it’s difficult to imagine another president ever receiving that much widespread support.
Happy birthday Mr. President.
Witnessing?
By the way, how is that Grenada Memorial project coming along?
I doubt he feels one way or the other about it.
Yes, let’s celebrate the power of public relations.
As a guy that deals with history, it is more fun to notice how Ronald Reagan would be rejected by most of the republican base of today.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/500305/reagan_would_fail_purity_test_proposed_for_gop
However as I come from El Salvador, I can not forgive him for how he looked the other way while death squads and repression were running in El Salvador and other Central American nations.
There is no God but Hollywood, and Ronny is his Messenger.
Moved to MPSIMS from Great Debates.
Reagan wasn’t perfect as some conservatives believe he was. He was certainly not the “amiable dunce” that liberals desperately wish he was. As with everything else, ideology is the ultimate yardstick by which his presidency is measured. A liberal will never acknowledge his accomplishments, no matter what the emperical evidence. It’s just not done. The Soviet Union? That was Gorbachev and the Pope, plus it would have happened anyway. Military buildup? A sop to his “rich friends” and totally unnecessary. Economy after 1983? “Built on the back of the poor”. And on and on.
Am I excusing him somewhat based on my own general political orientation? Probably. Iran-Contra was illegal, and not a good idea. Would I be more annoyed if it were a Democrat president trying to circumvent a Republican congress? Again, probably.
I think Reagan was the best thing for the country at the right time. He was a proponent of American exceptionalism at a time it was desperately needed after the disasterous Carter administration. There are millions of people in this country who do not hesitate to embrace patriotism and he was exactly what they needed. Millions of people in eastern europe owe him their freedom. Historians can do mental gymnastics all they like to try and minimize his presidency…but ask the Poles and others how they feel about him. Or the former East Germans after he spoke the words many associate with him demanding the wall come down.
Reagan was an inspirational figure and a symbol of an America that his supporters deeply believe in. He will always be revered by millions.
All the subsequent presidents have talked about AIDS. Though the epidemic’s media frenzy occurred during his presidency, Reagan refused to even mention it.
The wall that came down in 1989, after he left office?
Can I give Jimmy Carter credit for freeing the Iran hostages too? 
No, I think Reagan was somewhat usefully engaged in Eastern Europe. But Gorbachev was a lot more important.
And while Reagan was somewhat usefully engaged in Eastern Europe, our country was deeply unenlightened toward Latin America then. Some of the present anti-Mexican sentiment that bubbles menacingly toward race war was cultivated in that era. I worry that that makes his foreign policy record a wash, before we get to the Iran-Iraq stuff.
Which one was the recalcitrant?
Minnesota, where Mondale won his home state by only 0.18 percentage points. He also won Washington DC, but that isn’t a state. It was also the day I was born :).
Minnesota. Walter Mondale barely won his home state. DC also went for Mondale.
Reagan was the first POTUS I ever voted for, and it’s still the vote I most regret.
Reagan had nothing to do with the wall coming down. That’s about the biggest crock of shit in the Republican canon.
Reagan was a traitor who sold weapons to the enemy to fund a secret, illegal war, then lied about it, but escaped impeachment because the public generally felt he was too senile to be held accountable by the time it all got exposed.
Reagan still holds the numerical record for the most corrupt administration in history with 138 Reagan administration officials investigated, indicted or convicted of crimes.
Reagan also presided over the near destruction of the middle class, a quadrupling of the national debt, and the beginning of the pandering to the religious right which has culminated in the current loss of all legitimacy within the Republican party.
While the country he was supposed to protect was wracked with epidemic, Reagan refused to acknowldge that disease even existed.
Reagan was shit. Not as shit as W, but still shit.
Minnesota, which Mondale only barely won even though it was his home state. He snagged DC too, but that’s not a state.
What a great President to-day should be a national holiday.
Reagan was scary. At the time, I saw him as a cowboy who might be too quick on the draw. (‘Go nuclear,’ the Cowboy told us / And who am I do disagree? / For when the Madman flips the switch / The nuclear will go for me / The lunatics have taken over the asylum…) And if anything happened to him, GHW Bush would be President. (In retrospect, even speaking as a liberal, he knew his international relations. The former-head-of-the-CIA thing bothered me at the time, though.) And then there was Al ‘I’m In Charge’ Haig…
Has anybody read this book yet? It’s on my list, but I was wondering what other people thought.
No one whose presidency I can remember should have a national holiday. That’s just on principle.
Personally, Reagan’s complete refusal to acknowledge the existence of HIV/AIDS makes him, in my view, a disgusting failure of a leader. In a time of crisis, he put his head in the sand. It’s too bad I don’t believe in hell because I wish he was burning for his callous disregard for human life.
That’s not even counting Iran-Contra. He either violated the law to sell weapons to those who wished our nation harm, or he was the stupidest motherfucker on the planet to not realize that people inside his administration were traitors.