Reagan Worship

[Valmy]

Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. 

LOL no.

[citizen k]

Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. 

LOL no.

He'll be semi-deified because of his policies?

[Admiral Yi]

Obama's legacy will live or die on the success or failure of Barrycare.

[Berkut]

Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. 

LOL no.

He'll be semi-deified because of his policies?

If his historical record is positive, it will be on the basis of Obamacare. That is his legacy, for better or worse.

[Valmy]

He'll be semi-deified because of his policies?

Obama has his fans but he is no Jack Kennedy. Lloyd Bentsen agrees.

[Valmy]

Obama's legacy will live or die on the success or failure of Barrycare.

That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.

[Admiral Yi]

That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.

He also passed Obamastimulus.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.

He also passed Obamastimulus.

Which was really just an expansion of Bushbucks.

[Admiral Yi]

Which was really just an expansion of Bushbucks.

No it wasn't.  Obamastimulus was money out the door, much of it into the pockets of Democratic interest groups.  Bushbucks was the temporary purchase and eventual resale of financial institutions, except for the part Barry decided to hand over to his buds in the UAW.

[Razgovory]

Right-wing cipher who rode a wave of reactionary opinion in the 1970's and 80's.  Did little while lower ranking republicans encouraged people to project onto him making very popular.  Was guilty of impeachable offensives, and was probably at suffering from Alzheimer's in his second term.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I can't help thinking of all the anti-austerity people as I consider Reagan. He was castigated for "voodoo economics" back in the day as he pursued loose fiscal policies that might well be regarded as enlightened anti-austerity measures today 


I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.

[Eddie Teach]

I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.

You must have loved GWB then. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.

You must have loved GWB then. 

There is a difference between scoffing a few jelly beans then taking a nap and invading Iraq on false intel 

[11B4V]

I liked his last letter to America.

[The Minsky Moment]

There were 2 stages to Reagan's presidency - the first few years when a took on a bunch of crazed ideologues like Watt and Stockman who made a utter hash of things (since seedy is gone I can include Al Haig here), and the second stage when the grownups like Baker and Schultz steadied the ship.  Although Ed meese breaks the simple division and then there was the Oliver North operation . . .

On foreign policy there was also this bipolarity - Reagan was a dedicated saber-rattler, but once he figured out Gorbachev was on the level, he departed script and horrified his own people by the speed with which he was willing to move - e.g. his 1986 proposal for total mutual nuclear disarm.

On the one hand, his first UN Secretary was Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the apologist of nasty juntas everywhere with her infamous "authoritarian-totalitarian" distinction.  On the other hand, he embraced democratic transition in the Philippines in repudiation of that very doctrine.

In short he was a man full of contradictions, and thus in retrospect there is a tendency for people to project on him whatever they want to see.  It helps that he was also a masterful communicator, a practiced professional actor who spent decades building a genial image and a sunny disposition.