The Destroyer of All Western Values

[jbird4049]

Reagan on the other hand, he gets a pass, on absolutely everything, talk about teflon, to the absurd, all because he just blew sunshine up America's ass and bumbled around like the White House was an old folks home.

It was all about the optics, and acting, not facts. Carter was not Presidential in appearance so everything bad, no matter who was to blame, stuck to him. Reagan looked Presidential, and he acted Presidential, so nothing bad stuck to him.

[Smitty-48]

Nah, that wasn't it, Reagan actually came off as kind of cartoonish, like some dinosaur from the 1950's, but that was his main selling point, because Americans were burnt out after the 70's, they were just want to withdraw into the fantasy world of the Nostalgia for an America that Never Was.

It also helped that Reagan pretty much caved into every entrenched interest there was rather than follow through on his agenda, and so turned out to be not as scary as they had all surmised based on his fiery campaign rhetoric, Big Government Nanny State Tax and Spend Republican FTW.

He went totally Keynesian, government spending went through the roof, the trickle down, was coming from the Feds, after assailing Carter for "government spending!", under Reagan it promptly increased by 60%; Flying around in a helicopter dropping pork on districts to buy votes.

Carter wouldn't, or couldn't get the pork flowing to the districts, Reagan would and could, and he called it Morning in America.

After running as a Barry Goldwater-esque Firebrand, upon being faced with a Democrat Congress once in office, Reagan pretty much signed off on everything they wanted and more, this bought him a lot of slack, the Congress which Jimmy Carter could not get along with, became Ronald Reagan's new best friends.

Carter was trying to force changes on entrenched interests, but he couldn't sell it, and he went to war with his own party, and then they stonewalled and blamed him for everything, this became the media narrative, and Americans bought it, Reagan on the other hand, took the easy path, just give them all what they want, regardless of fiscal restraint, and the net result was that he was insulated, rahter than being attacked, he was given a pass.

He really only got into trouble, when he was flowing all this money to the Contradora Death Squads in Latin America, and the Congress wanted to know what all the money was being spent on, and when they couldn't get a satisfactory answer, they cut him off. Then of course, he went behind their backs to Ollie North and the Iranians, but when all that blew up, rather than be impeached, people just felt sorry for him, because at this point he was coming off as a dottering old man who couldn't tie his own shoe laces.

Once in hot water, he played it up of course, but we've since found out that behind the scenes, he was pretty much completely out-of-er most of the time, remembering things that didn't happen, forgeting things that just happened, withdrawing into a fantasy world, etc.

Obviously by the time he was diagnosed with Alzeheimers it was already clear he had Alzeheimers, repeating himself during speeches and whatnot, his speech was changing, he was dottering very perceptiblty, he was degenerating rather precipitously at the end, but if you go back with that hindsight, and look through the whole second term, you see the signs much earlier in retrospect.

If Iran-Contra had gone down in the first term, I think he definitely could have gotten impeached, I mean, pretty serious charges by any measure, High Crimes and Misdemeanors on the face of it, bad as anything Nixon did, but because it happened so late in the second term when he was so clearly out-of-er, it was kind of like "ah, poor ol' fella, he didn't know what he was doing, just let him walk..."

Nobody ever cut Tricky Dick any slack, but Tricky Dutch charmed them all into a get out of jail free pass.

[heydaralon]

Moreover, I can't believe you're now defending Dutch Reagan as being a tough guy, after you called me "effete" just for putting fertilizer on my lawn, have you ever seen Reagan do yardwork? He had no clue what he was doing, and he wore jodhpurs fer fucks sakes.

lol there may have been some alcohol involved in my post . I was just surprised that you were worried about dog piss ruining your lawn. I did not realize canine urine had the potency to mess up grass like that. I


Why do you think Reagan caved to the liberals? I was under the impression that supply side economics was a Republican's wet dream.

I am with you on the Reagan foreign policy stuff. Lebanon was a shit show. We should have stayed far away from it. Also, you mentioned by the time Contra was happening Reagan was senile and unaware of what was happening. I thought his dementia started to kick in after he left office.

Edit: Wait nevermind you kind of answered my question with your response to jbird. Disregard the reagan part

[Smitty-48]

Why do you think Reagan caved to the liberals? I was under the impression that supply side economics was a Republican's wet dream.

Supply side economics indeed, but the Republicans said that would be trickling down from the private sector, when it's tricking down from the taxpayers, that's Keynesian economics.

[heydaralon]

Nah, that wasn't it, Reagan actually came off as kind of cartoonish, like some dinosaur from the 1950's, but that was his main selling point, because Americans were burnt out after the 70's, they were just want to withdraw into the fantasy world of the Nostalgia for an America that Never Was.

It also helped that Reagan pretty much caved into every entrenched interest there was rather than follow through on his agenda, and so turned out to be not as scary as they had all surmised based on his fiery campaign rhetoric, Big Government Nanny State Tax and Spend Republican FTW.

He went totally Keynesian, government spending went through the roof, the trickle down, was coming from the Feds, after assailing Carter for "government spending!", under Reagan it promptly increased by 60%; Flying around in a helicopter dropping pork on districts to buy votes.

Carter wouldn't, or couldn't get the pork flowing to the districts, Reagan would and could, and he called it Morning in America.

After running as a Barry Goldwater-esque Firebrand, upon being faced with a Democrat Congress once in office, Reagan pretty much signed off on everything they wanted and more, this bought him a lot of slack, the Congress which Jimmy Carter could not get along with, became Ronald Reagan's new best friends.

Carter was trying to force changes on entrenched interests, but he couldn't sell it, and he went to war with his own party, and then they stonewalled and blamed him for everything, this became the media narrative, and Americans bought it, Reagan on the other hand, took the easy path, just give them all what they want, regardless of fiscal restraint, and the net result was that he was insulated, rahter than being attacked, he was given a pass.

He really only got into trouble, when he was flowing all this money to the Contradora Death Squads in Latin America, and the Congress wanted to know what all the money was being spent on, and when they couldn't get a satisfactory answer, they cut him off. Then of course, he went behind their backs to Ollie North and the Iranians, but when all that blew up, rather than be impeached, people just felt sorry for him, because at this point he was coming off as a dottering old man who couldn't tie his own shoe laces.

Once in hot water, he played it up of course, but we've since found out that behind the scenes, he was pretty much completely out-of-er most of the time, remembering things that didn't happen, forgeting things that just happened, withdrawing into a fantasy world, etc.

Obviously by the time he was diagnosed with Alzeheimers it was already clear he had Alzeheimers, repeating himself during speeches and whatnot, his speech was changing, he was dottering very perceptiblty, he was degenerating rather precipitously at the end, but if you go back with that hindsight, and look through the whole second term, you see the signs much earlier in retrospect.

If Iran-Contra had gone down in the first term, I think he definitely could have gotten impeached, I mean, pretty serious charges by any measure, High Crimes and Misdemeanors on the face of it, bad as anything Nixon did, but because it happened so late in the second term when he was so clearly out-of-er, it was kind of like "ah, poor ol' fella, he didn't know what he was doing, just let him walk..."

Nobody ever cut Tricky Dick any slack, but Tricky Dutch charmed them all into a get out of jail free pass.

As far as fall guys go, John Poindexter and Oliver North just worked better than the Nixon stooges. Didn't Poindexter just puff his pipe contemptuously at Congress and not say shit?

[Smitty-48]

As far as fall guys go, John Poindexter and Oliver North just worked better than the Nixon stooges. Didn't Poindexter just puff his pipe contemptuously at Congress and not say shit?

Oh, but they had a smoking gun tape that could have fried them all, a taped conversation in which North states that Reagan was being briefed and had copies of memos detailing the operation, the tape was made on the phone with Citibank, they were on the phone with Citibank having this heated conversation about it in the background, and Citibank routinely records the calls, Citibank turned the tape over to the FBI and the FBI turned it over to the Special Prosecuter, but the tape was never used, they never entered it into evidence.

[heydaralon]

As far as fall guys go, John Poindexter and Oliver North just worked better than the Nixon stooges. Didn't Poindexter just puff his pipe contemptuously at Congress and not say shit?

Oh, but they had a smoking gun tape that could have fried them all, a taped conversation in which North states that Reagan was being briefed and had copies of memos detailing the operation, the tape was made on the phone with Citibank, they were on the phone with Citibank having this heated conversation about it in the background, and Citibank routinely records the calls, Citibank turned the tape over to the FBI and the FBI turned it over to the Special Prosecuter, but the tape was never used, they never entered it into evidence.

Damn. I didn't know about the Citibank tape. The Iran Contra thing is the reason I can believe the October Surprise conspiracy theory that Reagan secretly negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages after he took the White House. He had a history of secret deals with Iran. It is interesting that Iran is Republican enemy number one, and Reagan gets a pass from the Republicans for all the shady shit he did with them.

[Smitty-48]

Damn. I didn't know about the Citibank tape. The Iran Contra thing is the reason I can believe the October Surprise conspiracy theory that Reagan secretly negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages after he took the White House. He had a history of secret deals with Iran. It is interesting that Iran is Republican enemy number one, and Reagan gets a pass from the Republicans for all the shady shit he did with them.

Read Ollie North's book, he's brazen about it, he makes no bones about lying under oath, but he also reveals the existence of the smoking gun tape, because in disclosure, the prosecutors revealed the existence of the tape to his lawyer, his lawyer comes back to North; "they've got a smoking gun".

[heydaralon]

Damn. I didn't know about the Citibank tape. The Iran Contra thing is the reason I can believe the October Surprise conspiracy theory that Reagan secretly negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages after he took the White House. He had a history of secret deals with Iran. It is interesting that Iran is Republican enemy number one, and Reagan gets a pass from the Republicans for all the shady shit he did with them.

Read Ollie North's book, he's brazen about it, he makes no bones about lying under oath, but he also reveals the existence of the smoking gun tape, because in disclosure, the prosecutors revealed the existence of the tape to his lawyer, his lawyer comes back to North; "they've got a smoking gun".

Who was more badass: Oliver North or G Gordon Liddy? I think Liddy all the way.

[Smitty-48]

Damn. I didn't know about the Citibank tape. The Iran Contra thing is the reason I can believe the October Surprise conspiracy theory that Reagan secretly negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages after he took the White House. He had a history of secret deals with Iran. It is interesting that Iran is Republican enemy number one, and Reagan gets a pass from the Republicans for all the shady shit he did with them.

Read Ollie North's book, he's brazen about it, he makes no bones about lying under oath, but he also reveals the existence of the smoking gun tape, because in disclosure, the prosecutors revealed the existence of the tape to his lawyer, his lawyer comes back to North; "they've got a smoking gun".

Who was more badass: Oliver North or G Gordon Liddy? I think Liddy all the way.

North; Vietnam Marine Infantry Platoon Commander, Silver Star, Bronze Star, 2 x Purple Heart.