Reagan & GW Bush

[JerrySeinfeld]

Take the time to read this article by Mark Steyn.

It's largely a tribute to Reagan - a "simpleton" politician.

Great article. Never explicitly mentions a comparison to GW Bush - but if you read the article and think of today's world with GW Bush as president, it is so obvious that history will be so much kinder to him than the present is.

Another great republican president with the balls and clarity not to bow to the "elite" know-it-all blowhard surrender-enthusiasts.

excrpt:

Edmund Morris has described his subject as an “airhead” and concluded that it’s “like dropping a pebble in a well and hearing no splash.” Morris may not have heard the splash, but he’s still all wet: the elites were stupid about Reagan in a way that only clever people can be. Take that cheap crack: if you drop a pebble in a well and you don’t hear a splash, it may be because the well is dry but it’s just as likely it’s because the well is of surprising depth. I went out to my own well and dropped a pebble: I heard no splash, yet the well supplies exquisite translucent water to my home.

But then I suspect it’s a long while since Morris dropped an actual pebble in an actual well: As with walls, his taste runs instinctively to the metaphorical. Reagan looked at the Berlin Wall and saw not a poem-quoting opportunity but prison bars.

I once discussed Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America”, with his friend and fellow songwriter Jule Styne, and Jule put it best: “It’s easy to be clever. But the really clever thing is to be simple.” At the Berlin Wall that day, it would have been easy to be clever, as all those Seventies détente sophisticates would have been. And who would have remembered a word they said? Like Irving Berlin with “God Bless America”, only Reagan could have stood there and declared without embarrassment:

Tear down this wall!

- and two years later the wall was, indeed, torn down. Ronald Reagan was straightforward and true and said it for everybody - which is why his “rhetorical opportunity missed” is remembered by millions of grateful Eastern Europeans. The really clever thing is to have the confidence to say it in four monosyllables.

Ronald Reagan was an American archetype, and just the bare bones of his curriculum vitae capture the possibilities of his country: in the Twenties, a lifeguard at a local swimming hole who saved over 70 lives; in the Thirties, a radio sports announcer; in the Forties, a Warner Brothers leading man ...and finally one of the two most significant presidents of the American century. Unusually for the commander in chief, Reagan’s was a full, varied American life, of which the presidency was the mere culmination.

“The Great Communicator” was effective because what he was communicating was self-evident to all but our decayed elites: “We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around,” he said in his inaugural address. And at the end of a grim, grey decade - Vietnam, Watergate, energy crises, Iranian hostages – Americans decided they wanted a President who looked like the nation, not like its failed government. Thanks to his clarity, around the world governments that had nations have been replaced by nations that have governments. Most of the Warsaw Pact countries are now members of Nato, with free markets and freely elected parliaments.

[daniel]

...it is so obvious that history will be so much kinder to him than the present is....

Imagine GW is so incompetent that his only notable accomplishment was making even Reagan look good.

From Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, HW Bush, to GW Bush - if the trend continues, history will treat GW kinder since the next Republican President will be even dumber.

[jdobbin]

Latest Wall Street Journal today says that even Republicans are withdrawing their support from Bush. Are they surrender monkeys too?

[geoffrey]

It's an insult to such a great President as Reagan to compare him to GWB.

[White Doors]

It's an insult to such a great President as Reagan to compare him to GWB.

I don't think that it is. You may be too young to remember, but Reagan was villified by the left and the media for a long time that he was in power. After he was gone and the results of his decisions became more clear he was resurrected and now it has gone so far as the left is trying to reclaim him as one of their own. haha

You have to remember the passage of time when you think of important people.

That passage will be a make or break for GWB.

[Figleaf]

Reagan was a mediocre president who spoke in a way that made a whole lot of Americans feel really good.

His rightwing stance on economics was slightly useful as an antidote for creeping statist inefficiencies, but overall was neither theoretically sound, nor pragmatically sustainable. His social policies were harmful and ineffective.

His foreign policy was questionably motivated, but in the final result effective in forcing an end to the Cold War.

Bush is a disastrous president whose policies have killed thousands of US servicepeople completely pointlessly and squandered billions and billions of dollars. He has acheived nothing but to alienate US allies and grow the strength of US enemies.

And his domestic policies are foolish and feckless.

He is (and will be remembered as) The Worst President In History.

[bush_cheney2004]

Any US president who manages to piss off CanAm commies and socialists can't be half bad.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Any US president who manages to piss off CanAm commies and socialists can't be half bad.

Exactly - and reagan's foreign policies were criticized by many republican insiders too.

[ScottSA]

If sweal (Figleaf) doesn't like him, he must be good!

[Figleaf]

Any US president who manages to piss off CanAm commies and socialists can't be half bad.

You apply peculiar criteria to you political analyses! You are ready to laud presidents for pissing off fringe Canadians, no matter how much harm they visit on their own American citizenry. Odd.

[daniel]

Any US president who manages to piss off CanAm commies and socialists can't be half bad.

So an American soldier's life isn't worth piss to any US president who does that.

[sharkman]

Any US president who manages to piss off CanAm commies and socialists can't be half bad.

So an American soldier's life isn't worth piss to any US president who does that.

So, if a president pisses of CanAm commies and socialists, it's a sigal that he doesn't value American soldiers? What kind of alternate reality is that?

Bush will look good 10 years from now after the terrorists fianlly manage to set off a nuke in the U.S. By then most will look back at the years of no attack with envy as the fall out cooks their food for them.

[bush_cheney2004]

So an American soldier's life isn't worth piss to any US president who does that.

Quite to the contrary, an American soldier's life is invaluable as a policy instrument. But there are many other ways to hose Commies!

[Guest coot]

Quite to the contrary, an American soldier's life is invaluable as a policy instrument.

I suppose they fertilize Halliburton profits quite well.

[GostHacked]

Regan was also an actor, so it was not much of a stretch to play the role of a President.

Sharkman

Bush will look good 10 years from now after the terrorists fianlly manage to set off a nuke in the U.S. By then most will look back at the years of no attack with envy as the fall out cooks their food for them.

Actually that nuke in the US is sooner than that. I am predicting this year. And the war on terror will NOT be able to prevent it. So that makes Bush look good? 'Ha ha I told you so!'. But the fact the US has not been attacked since 9/11 is a CLEAR sign that this war on terror is going as planned. History cannot be kind to Bush Jr. Since this war may not end in our lifetime, it will be very hard to judge just how good a job Bush has actually done. The endless quagmire.

I have a rock that will stave off bears. Cheap too, 5 dollars each.

[gc1765]

I have a rock that will stave off bears. Cheap too, 5 dollars each.

Works too! I bought one a while ago, and I haven't been eaten by a bear yet!

[sharkman]

Gost, it sound like you are counting the hours until the blast.

Would you mind explaining how staving off attacks since 9/11 proves the terror agenda is proceding?

At any rate, we agree it will happen. Can you imagine how that will change the American way of life, and ours by extension? Already their money is devaluing and China is getting more powerful economically, militarily and otherwise. Iran, North Korea, Russia; nobody fears the U.S. anymore. What a difference a decade makes.

[GostHacked]

Sharkman

With edits

Would you mind explaining how staving off attacks since 9/11 proves the terror agenda is proceding?

That is just it now is it not? I have heard Bush in some ways say that the plan is working for there have not been any attacks since. And if another attack happens in the Homeland USA, then how is everyone going to feel about this war on terror? Will they keep supporting it? A terror attack can garner as much support as one can detract the support. And according to Bush, FBI and CIA, they have managed to break up many terror plots targeting the USA mainland.

LA Skyscraper (turned out to be a false plot)

Fort Dix. Who in their right freaking mind is going to attack a military installation with many soldiers and many weapons? This plot was just laughable. I doubt they would have hit a 'pc store' to make a copy of their Jihad movie. Too much of a risk, even for idiots.

JFK airport plot. .... no commment on this one.

When people come to the realization that the pre-emtive war on terror will in no way at all prevent the next terrorist attack in the mainland USA, it is doomed to fail from the start. And that is the bigger picture I have always been looking at.

To answer your question, I will refer you to Bush himself. Maybe he can answer those questions for us.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Sharkman

With edits

Would you mind explaining how staving off attacks since 9/11 proves the terror agenda is proceding?

That is just it now is it not? I have heard Bush in some ways say that the plan is working for there have not been any attacks since. And if another attack happens in the Homeland USA, then how is everyone going to feel about this war on terror? Will they keep supporting it? A terror attack can garner as much support as one can detract the support. And according to Bush, FBI and CIA, they have managed to break up many terror plots targeting the USA mainland.

LA Skyscraper (turned out to be a false plot)

Fort Dix. Who in their right freaking mind is going to attack a military installation with many soldiers and many weapons? This plot was just laughable. I doubt they would have hit a 'pc store' to make a copy of their Jihad movie. Too much of a risk, even for idiots.

JFK airport plot. .... no commment on this one.

When people come to the realization that the pre-emtive war on terror will in no way at all prevent the next terrorist attack in the mainland USA, it is doomed to fail from the start. And that is the bigger picture I have always been looking at.

To answer your question, I will refer you to Bush himself. Maybe he can answer those questions for us.

It's like both warm and cold weather is evidence of global warming. Lots of terror plots is evidence that the war on terror is working. And so are no terror plots

[ScottSA]

When people come to the realization that the pre-emtive war on terror will in no way at all prevent the next terrorist attack in the mainland USA, it is doomed to fail from the start. And that is the bigger picture I have always been looking at.

But it's also true that sending up fighter planes wouldn't stop the London Blitz, or that bombing Dresden wouldn't stop V2 rockets, but if one were to look at the bigger picture, as you so ironically put it, those are battles in a much larger war. What you are in effect saying is that if we suffer any casualties at all, we might as well not fight. That's beyond ridiculous.

[Figleaf]

Already their money is devaluing and China is getting more powerful economically, militarily and otherwise. Iran, North Korea, Russia; nobody fears the U.S. anymore. What a difference a decade makes.

Decade? No, less than that.

What a difference just one very terrible president can make.

[Figleaf]

When people come to the realization that the pre-emtive war on terror will in no way at all prevent the next terrorist attack in the mainland USA, it is doomed to fail from the start. And that is the bigger picture I have always been looking at.

Bingo.

The sheer ease with which a terrorist who cares not for escape or his life could kill dozens of people in a spectacular way makes a mockery of the ludicrous ineffectuality of the supposed 'enhanced security' our governments have been playing about with.

Rent a pickup truck, put a barrel or two of gasoline in the back and drive it into a bus or a theatre lobby. Film it all with a cellphone and slap it on YouTube with a jihadist soundtrack and you've struck your blow for Allah! Or poison a civic water supply (which are usually totally unprotected). Or empty a bagful nuts and bolts out of a tall building over a busy street. Or attack a daycare with axes (three workers and a dozen little kids aren't much a challenge if you bring a couple of determined jihadis and have the element of surprise). Or dress up like contractors and pump carbon monoxide into an apartment building or nursing home for a few hours late some winter night.

My point is this ... none of the security measures we've rolled out so far would do anything to prevent such attacks. And they never will. So, why aren't we seeing slaughter such as this on an ongoing basis? If there is nothing stopping our implacable, fanatical, remorseless, suicidal, freedom-hating enemies, why haven't they done these things yet? Answer: Maybe they aren't all they are cracked up to be.

[GostHacked]

Figleaf, you made me laugh in a few parts of that post.

The problem exists still when even your own citizens of the country are doing 'terrorist' activities. McVeigh and the Oaklahoma Federal Building. There are people in your own border that want to kill you, and you are worried about those half way around the world?

ScottSA

What you are in effect saying is that if we suffer any casualties at all, we might as well not fight. That's beyond ridiculous.

This is not what I am saying. I am saying no matter how hard you fight, the attacks will still happen. If you spend 1 dollar, or a trillion dollars, the probability of an attack is still the same. Many resources are wasted fighting the war on terror. More government control over your security. You take the job of being secure in your effects and give it now to the government. You no longer have the effectiveness to prevent it yourself. If you see it you would be able to do something about it. Not anymore. And we know how efficient government is on those kinds of things. Too little too late.

And because you want to catch those few terrorists you hinder the lives of everyone in the country towards that end of catching terrorists. More control over you and your shit. Don't worry the government is there to protect you and prevent the attacks.

And it is about the oil and natural resources that Bush is over there. Where you find war these days, you will find oil, and lots of it.

[bush_cheney2004]

This is not what I am saying. I am saying no matter how hard you fight, the attacks will still happen. If you spend 1 dollar, or a trillion dollars, the probability of an attack is still the same....

No, that's not how probability and statistics works. The probability of terrorism even changes regardless of counterterrorism policies. I am glad that my local police department and criminal justice system do not rationalize this way.

[GostHacked]

No, that's not how probability and statistics works. The probability of terrorism even changes regardless of counterterrorism policies. I am glad that my local police department and criminal justice system do not rationalize this way.

However your local police force is now linked with state and federal forces as well. Your local guys are the federal and state guys now. And they DO see it that way.