FWIW: From Armed Madhouse, by Greg Palast, Chapter 2, “The Flow,” discussing the neocons’ plan to break the back of OPEC by privatizing Iraq’s state-owned oil industry and opening it to free competition:
A Republican man-about-town
Could make a smile vertical frown
For, at finish, the heel
Always made the girl kneel
And let all the wealth trickle down!
That’s just Dio being Dio. But this particular point, Reagan and the Cold War, takes up so much air, that other issues, such as the one that I mentioned up thread, and one that has had far, far greater impact on the daily lives of Americans, often get ignored.
Not that I have any love for Reagan, but in the Aug. 30, 2010 New Yorker, Oliver Sacks wrote that Reagan is assumed to have suffered from some degree of face-blindness. His son Michael described Reagan introducing himself to him at his high school graduation, completely failing to recognize his son. He had great difficulty recognizing people out of the context in which he knew them.
Oops, it’s not in that particular article after all. I don’t know where I read it.
Fair enough. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt regarding that one incident. I’ll remove that particular bullet point and replace it with Reagan’s opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1964 (prior to its being up for renewal in 1982), which he declared was “humiliating to the South”.
Indeed, I’d argue that Carter the man is overrated, and Carter the President is underrated. A lot of things that happened weren’t his fault, and he did have some meaningful accomplishments. Of course some of the things I’d give him credit for are things like his deregulation efforts, which no doubt were horrible errors to some.
Of course that’s the way threads like this usually go; people praise or condemn largely based on whether or not the person acted in accord with their political philosophy. Reagan was pretty obviously a very significant president, and most of the ones around him (Ford, Carter, Bush 1, Clinton) were not. Doesn’t mean they were bad, but I doubt any of them will have the historical influence (good or bad) that Reagan did.
My own politics say that he massively increased the deficit and the size of government and ramped up a disastrous war on drugs (bad), but that he also generally liberalized the marketplace and only gave lip service to his more strident social-conservative supporters (good).
The idea that he single-handedly won the cold war is obviously a myth; but numerous dissidents in Eastern Europe (e.g. Lech Walesa) said that Reagan’s Evil Empire rhetoric emboldened them, and certainly plenty of NATO leaders (Thatcher, Kohl) of the era gave him lots of credit. Arguing that he just happened to be there when communism collapsed all on its own (after lasting most of a century) is ignorant, stupid, or both.
Nazism was undone more by the invasion of Russia than anything else; that doesn’t mean that in evaluating FDR we deny him credit for winning WWII. Ditto Reagan.
If anything, I’m overstating his impact.
You don’t believe Clinton was significant?
All presidents are significant but there is what I call the “Chester” factor after Chester A. Arthur. Mention Chester Arthur to most college freshmen and very few will have any idea he was ever president (“We had a president named Chester?”)and of those very few who do very few could probably tell you much about him other than “became president when Garfield was shot”. Some just aren’t that associated with a major event or act or change in the public mind and aren’t remembered.
He wasn’t a mental giant but you don’t necessarily need that to be a great leader.
See: Jimmy Carter.
Reagan was exactly what the country needed after who I think was at least in the top 5 of the worst U.S presidents in history. Carter couldn’t inspire a decent bowel movement.
As an angst ridden teen during the Carter years and watching Night Line with Ted Koppel before bed and watching President mopey on the tube on a nightly basis certainly didn’t improve my mood any either.
I won’t claim that Reagan brought down the Soviet Union single handed but for liberals to claim he had no effect at all in their downfall are just overly biased and refuse to give any credit to the man at all.
Ah, well, I see it was a major concession on your part. 
Out of curiosity, why should anyone take you seriously when you say something like this? It’s so ridiculous that the fact you take it seriously puts into question your grasp of even basic reality. I mean, EVERY president has some effect on the events that take place during his presidency. Reagan certainly interacted with the Russians directly, so to claim he had zero effect is, well, rather silly.
Back on planet reality, I’d say how much effect he had is certainly debatable. But for liberals to say he has no positive legacy or had no events during his presidency is on par with the conservatives who say the same thing about Clinton…or even Carter. It’s hard to take seriously anyone who allows their partisan blinders to become that opaque…
-XT
He had no effect at all. None. Zero.
It’s also dittohead mythology that Carter was a particularly bad President. Nixon, Reagan and W were all much worse. Reagan probably took the most lasting shit on the country in the most significant, indelible ways.
There goes another irony meter…
-XT
I voted for the dick.
Well, he stated it, didn’t he? Sheeze.
And now that’s it’s later in the thread he can even use that post as a cite. What part of Dio don’t you get?
<two minutes later>
Ha. I’m prescient.
Umm . . .
Hell, never mind.
Assuming you meant Tricky Dick, I wasn’t old enough to vote then. I voted for Carter. What can I say?
-XT
Nah, just another Diogenes the Cynic absolutionist tirade with only a tangential relationship to reality.
Stranger
I think you meant “absolutist”. Unless Dio has recently joined the clergy. 
Perfect.