The Death of Ronald Reagan

I said that the nuclear option was good to end the Cuban missle Crisis, not the cold war.

Er, the nuclear option in the missile crisis WOULD have ended the cold war. Pretty quickly too. And Reagan wouldn't then have needed to come along...

 

Or anyone else, for that matter.

That conversation my middle-school-age dad was having with his friends in the cafeteria, wondering if they were going to be alive the next day? They really wouldn't have been alive the next day.

We would have had peace alright, but dead people fight no wars.

 

but dead people fight no wars.

Huh? You miss Return of the King?


Ender Sai, Bush wants and hopes to be the heir to Reagan.

Is he?

IMHO, no he is not. Influenced by Reagan, yes alot. But, his and his family connections come from a different background.

 

George W. Bush isn't on the same planet as Ronald Reagan.

 

A note about the book "Presidential Leadership" (mentioned a few pages ago) from James Taranto, Leonard Leo and William J. Bennett from David Brock:

James Taranto, editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page website, OpinionJournal.com, appeared on NBC's Today show on June 10 to promote his new book, Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House; the book's co-editor is Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the right-wing legal advocacy group The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. Presidential Leadership is based on a survey conducted in 2000 by The Federalist Society that rated former President Ronald Reagan much higher than had others' previous surveys...

On the Today show, co-anchor Katie Couric interviewed both Taranto and author-historian Douglas Brinkley, who is a contributor to Presidential Leadership. Taranto told Couric that the survey was done "to get a balanced panel of liberals and conservatives because past surveys by people like [historian] Arthur Schlesinger tended to be quite liberal and so Reagan didn't do very well, for example he was number 25 in the 'low average' category in Schlesinger's last survey in 1996."

The Federalist Society study surveyed 78 historians, political scientists, and lawyers. According to Northwestern Law professor James Lindgren, who put together the survey and analyzed the data, the similarity of results between Schlesinger's 1996 study and The Wall Street Journal/Federalist Society study is "staggeringly high." According to Lindgren, "The main difference between the two studies is that Ronald Reagan ranks eighth in our study, while he ranked 25th (out of 39 presidents) in Schlesinger's 1996 study." ...

The new book, published by Wall Street Journal Books/Free Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster), includes the rankings as well as more than four dozen essays on presidential leadership written by conservatives such as Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes; Solicitor General Theodore Olson; former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney; and former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation led ultimately to former President Bill Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives and subsequent acquittal in the Senate. William J. Bennett wrote the book's foreword on presidential character.
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And from the AP:

...Ronald Reagan merits "near great" status here, compared to "average" rankings elsewhere. However, Democratic icons provoke gratuitous partisan sniping from some of the well-known conservative contributors, especially on the contentious issue of character, tilting the editors? much-vaunted objectivity rightward as a result. Peggy Noonan lingers on JFK's peccadilloes, including his use of sunless tanning products, rather than on his skillful management of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert Bork highlights FDR?s domestic and international miscues, leaving readers to wonder how the only four-term president ever made the top three. Although George W. Bush is not ranked, he garners a glowing profile that?s twice as long as FDR?s...
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Ken Starr, Lynne Cheney, Robert Bork...and Peggy Noonan on John Kennedy. They should've had Ted Rall write about George W. Bush if they truly wanted to be fair and balanced.

 

from Hardball last night:

MATTHEWS: What do you think of the discussion by Grover Norquist and some of the other real gung-ho guys about putting Reagan on the $10 bill and that sort of thing?

AL FRANKEN: I was thinking of putting him on all the currency, just, he?s on everything. And then it?s just like, so the kids growing up will just think of him, oh, there?s the money guy. . . or I was thinking of putting him on the $1 billion bill. And that way, we can [use it to] pay off the interest on our debt every year.

 

RIP Reagan

 

2-supported apartheid in south africa.

He didn't 'support' it at all. He said he strongly opposed it, but also opposed santions against South Africa. Many Democrats oppose santions against Cuba. Doesn't mean they are commies.

 

He didn't 'support' it at all. He said he strongly opposed it, but also opposed santions against South Africa. Many Democrats oppose santions against Cuba. Doesn't mean they are commies.

No, correct, but Cuba was being supported by a rival superpower that the US had to keep delicate relations with. South Africa was not. What were Reagan's stated reasons for not supporting sanctions against South Africa?