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Political Hay
Does Obama Really Admire Reagan?
Just the way he did in 2008, right?
The day before his State of the Union address, President Obama took to the pages of USA Today to sing the praises of Ronald Reagan. And why not? With the Reagan centennial is less than a fortnight away it can do Obama no harm to write a few kind words about The Gipper. Obama thus begins his tribute:
Ronald Wilson Reagan was a believer. As a husband, a father, an entertainer, a governor and a president, he recognized that each of us has the power — as individuals and as a nation — to shape our own destiny. He had faith in the American promise; in the importance of reaffirming values like hard work and personal responsibility; and in his own unique ability to inspire others to greatness.
Obama’s words are nice, pleasant and inoffensive. Yet in reading them there’s something that seems boilerplate about them. It’s as if he’s going through the motions. If you remove the references to governor and president, Obama could have very well been writing about Neil Diamond.
So does President Obama admire the 40th President? Yes he does. But not in the manner expressed in the USA Today article. If one wants to know what Obama really thinks about Reagan one should consider his remarks before Democrats in Columbia, South Carolina, as he was battling Hillary Clinton in that state’s primary in January 2008:
Folks are talking about how I supposedly said how wonderful Ronald Reagan was. (Laughter) Now let me tell you what I said just in case you’re getting it third-hand. (More laughter) What I said was that Ronald Reagan, back in 1980, was able to tap into the discontent of the American people and he was able to get Democrats to vote Republican. They were called Reagan Democrats. Remember that? And what I say it is that we as Democrats right now should tap into the discontent of Republicans. (Applause) I want some Obama Republicans. (More applause) I say Obamacons. (Laughter) So I didn’t say I liked Ronald Reagan’s policies. What I said was that it is the kind of working majority that we need to form in order to move a progressive agenda forward. (Applause)
Now it is true that a few days earlier Obama, while being interviewed by the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal, had described Reagan as a “transformational figure.” Yet it must be noted Obama stated, “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way Bill Clinton did not.” So one could read Obama’s comment as a means by which to diminish Bill Clinton and by extension Hillary Clinton rather than to elevate Reagan. Obama’s subsequent remarks in South Carolina seem to confirm this line of reasoning.
So Obama, ever the community organizer, admires Reagan as a conduit by which “to move a progressive agenda forward” (read: liberal agenda or socialist agenda). Obama admires Reagan only in the sense that he aspires to be to progressives what Reagan is to conservatives. But given Obama’s disdain for Reagan’s policies, I have a bit of a hard time believing when he praises Reagan for his ability “to work with leaders of all political persuasions to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and security around the world, including reducing nuclear weapons and imagining a world, ultimately, without nuclear weapons.”
After all, let us remember the issue of nuclear disarmament is what drove Obama’s passion that when he studied at Columbia University in the early 1980s. Indeed, in March 1983 Obama penned an article on the subject for Sundial, a campus magazine in which he expressed support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty “as a powerful first step towards a nuclear free world.” So are we to believe Obama thought highly of Reagan’s ability to work with world leaders during his administration’s arms buildup of the early '80s? It’s difficult to contemplate Obama viewing Reagan’s “we win, they lose” approach towards the USSR as anything but simplistic and jingoistic. We can only imagine what Obama thought when Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” Or how about when Reagan refused to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative when Mikhail Gorbachev offered to eliminate nuclear weapons? I am certain Obama would have gone, well, ballistic. Of course, there is certainly nothing Reaganesque about the new START Treaty with Russia. If Reagan were alive and kicking he would have opposed Obama’s approach to national security with every fiber of his being.
It is, of course, smart politics for President Obama to express his admiration for Ronald Reagan. Yet conservatives understand that Obama’s admiration for Reagan is a mile wide but an inch deep.
About the Author
Aaron Goldstein writes from Boston, Massachusetts.
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Deborah D | 1.25.11 @ 6:26AM
It's called equating yourself with greatness. More narcissism than admiration.
Alan Brooks| 1.25.11 @ 10:12PM
even Hunter Thompson knew:
"Reagan was the last great American."
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.25.11 @ 6:31AM
Obama must pretend to admire others. That way no one will suspect he only admires himself. And his teleprompter.
Maddox| 1.25.11 @ 10:35AM
Yes, Reagan's legacy is just being used in the scheme by Obama and people like him. They posture and deceive the pawns. The pawns bow and scrape to catch small parts of what he may bestow upon them until they are no longer useful to the rulers.
Appleby| 1.25.11 @ 7:17AM
As we used to say in school, sooner or later you learn what sells. That is, you say what they want to hear, and you say it with the clear understanding that (1) you all know this is what you are doing; and (2) nobody is fooled.
Its one more sign that Obama is still living his sophomore year in university, where nothing had to BE true, but everything had to SOUND true.
Occam's Tool| 1.25.11 @ 3:44PM
Appleby,
wasn't Obama still using in his Sophomore year?
Appleby| 1.25.11 @ 4:17PM
Who knows where he really was or what he was really doing? Nobody's seen the records.
GavInTucson| 1.25.11 @ 11:08PM
And nobody ever remembered Obama in college. Not a single former professor or student is on record as remembering Obama in college. Pretty strange, yes?
I can't remember a single President in recent memory that didn't have a slew of people claiming to have gone to school with them. Those people are usually the start of life-long friendships that result in presidential administration appointments.
coal carrier| 1.25.11 @ 7:42AM
What makes anyone believe that Obama will drop his liberal progressive socialist agenda? Why? So he can be like Bill Clinton and move to the center? Another bate and switch technique pushed by the Obama’s handlers and promoted by the liberal media. This is all we have been hearing for over a week now-“Obama has moved to the center.” And if you, the American voter believe that, you are a fool.
Ned| 1.25.11 @ 11:46AM
Well, yes C.C., 53% of American voters ARE fools, else we wouldn't be having this particular conversation.
BTW - that's "bait" and switch...
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.25.11 @ 7:54AM
No,
Obama's admiration for Mr. Reagan is not an inch deep. It is as deep as a puddle of P P on a flat pavement.
Dixie Pixie| 1.25.11 @ 11:37AM
Ken
Obama has even less depth than that.
Try as thin as a oil film in a Texas summer.
That is why Obama has the ever changing iridescent colors of a oily slick chameleon.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.25.11 @ 12:45PM
Well Pixie,
You are right. Oil film is thinner, heh but a version of my comment was one of my dad's favorites....and so darned icky.
Dixie Pixie| 1.25.11 @ 1:25PM
Greetings Ken
Smelly vs Oily?
A difficult choice to make between Obama dominant characteristics.
Let us see what characteristics predominate tonight at the SOTU address.
PJ| 1.25.11 @ 8:03AM
Every time I read about that foul person, Obama, mentioning the name, Ronald Reagan in order to push his rotten agenda, my stomach juices begins to churn.
Obama is a despicable human being & because of that he has no clue what Reagan's noble philosophy was all about!
Mattled| 1.25.11 @ 8:21AM
Apparently in his book (sorry, Bill Ayers') Dreams From My Father [For a Marxist Utopia], he was appalled at how Reagan was treating his fellow Communists and it "inspired" him to get into politics.
The quicker we get rid of this Kenyan Muslim Marxist *Brock Sotero, the better for all Americans---blacks included.
*Listen closely to Moochelle when she says "Barack"---it sounds like Brock. I think we should start calling him Brock. Who knows, it might drive him battier than he already is.
Louis Jenkins| 1.25.11 @ 8:44AM
Now, let's get this straight. Obama admires Reagan? That's a high hurdle to jump. As the current president can do you can call on anyone and everything to make your case. That's all this man is doing. I'm not misled, nor are you. Perhaps we should be thankful that he pretends to recognize Reagan, but I'd just prefer he leave him out of his conversations. Then he'd be more honest.
Richard Baker| 1.25.11 @ 8:45AM
Admires Reagan? Yeah, sure, as much as he admires the British Empire. This guy is giving an example of why he's not sincere about anything but himself. He DOES think we're all stupid.
George S| 1.25.11 @ 10:03AM
Looking at it another way, he was the only candidate to invoke the name of Ronald Reagan during the '08 campaign. How sad.
GavInTucson| 1.25.11 @ 11:21PM
And, strangely, didn't McCain at one point say that the era of Reagan was over?
Radioman777| 1.25.11 @ 10:04AM
Since Obama is a proven liar, he can pretty much say anything he wants. He's only spoken one truth as far as I can tell, and that's when he stated he wanted to "fundamentally transform America", which is sort of like Hitler saying that Germans "wouldn't recognize Germany" after four years. He was right.
solidground| 1.25.11 @ 10:34AM
As ever, Obama is full of crap.
Anthony| 1.25.11 @ 11:01AM
Obozo's faint praise of Reagan is a classic deception right out of Saul Alinsky and Sun Tzu.
Saul told followers to use words and symbols of your enemy. Sun Tzu said know your enemy.
One thing is for sure, will all due respect to David (GE's Obozo's house organ) Gregory, Obozo is America's enemy.
Just listen David, but take the cotton candy out from between your ears first.
vtwin| 1.25.11 @ 11:26AM
Does Obama Really Admire Reagan?
Yes, his ability to persuade but like most Americans Obama realizes that the nation’s challenges -deficits, outsourcing, a declining middle class, income inequality- was sown in policies of Reagan.
Doctor Right| 1.25.11 @ 12:20PM
Now THAT'S funny!!
When it comes to infantile falsehoods, vtwin NEVER fails to disappoint!
So Ronald Reagan is responsible for poverty???
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!!
Occam's Tool| 1.25.11 @ 3:46PM
Dear L-rd, vtwin, Carter had nothing to do with any problems Reagan inherited.
You may not remember, but 30 year T-Bills during the Carter era were returning 15%.
MGabel| 1.25.11 @ 12:10PM
It should be well known by now, to anyone with a brain, that Obama is a self serving, pandering, two faced liar. He will say anything if it pleases the current crowd, and affords him adulation (and votes).
Shame on us, as a nation, for awarding this miscreant our highest office.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.25.11 @ 12:21PM
Vitwin,
We are still working at it, but we haven't found a cure for stupid here yet......stupid!
mames| 1.25.11 @ 2:47PM
Apparently he truly thinks we are all idiots when in fact he is still the dumbest man in any room.
mames| 1.25.11 @ 3:53PM
I watched my honey dipper clean the septic tank to day. It reminded me of Obama, all clean on the outside, putrid, vile and highly infectious on the inside. Even now, though, I still can't come up with a specific enough metaphor for such a revolting person,er thing, ........ green sinus snot perhaps?
Negro X | 1.25.11 @ 5:52PM
Obama admires Obama and no one else except perhaps Mugabe.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque| 1.27.11 @ 4:02AM
The day before his State of the Union address, President Obama took to the pages of USA Today to sing the praises of Ronald Reagan.
Everything the guy says that isn't leftist in nature or doesn't glorify leftists is suspect.
Everything.
FREE tea| 2.2.11 @ 1:55AM
--STOP distracting us in this, the 11th hour of
NWO POST America by pitching tired, over-engineered 'icons' of decades past. PLEASE!
Reagan was perhaps well-meaning. But he was
undeniably an unwitting front for the NWO a la Bush Sr. used to buy time
and pump that Nixon-Acheson-Rockefeller-Kissinger sellout to the set-up, awesomely
genocidal RED Chinese regime.
The Reagan era WAS the era of the franchise-slumming of America. FACT
Confront the Luciferian (--TRUE) capstone
TAX FREE 'charitable' foundations here and in
London.
Call out their intergenerational,
raison de tre agendas for world control and
MASS extermination ---uh, we mean population
'easing'.
They have their fingerprints and funds all over everything from Darwinism, the illegal FED, and the sinister, Christianity destroying
Arminian Heresy front 'World Council of Churches' ---to the Bolshevik coup d 'etat
--Stalin --Hitler's eugenics dreamland and now
--MOST chilling opf all ----MAO TSE TUNG's
RED China.
Even as Bill Gates giggles us into the scientific
dictatorship of forced injections, stealth sterilizations etc. ----
"Come out from among them.
Do NOT partake of their sins."
Bob From District 9| 2.10.11 @ 10:41PM
Does Obama admire Reagan? God I hope not. If you faced Reagan today you would find him much too liberal for your taste, but, even so, he is so much responsible for the current economic decline this nation has experienced.
"I want some Obama Republicans."
He had them, in droves. I worked with some in his campaign. Republican malfeasance and dishonor drove so many of them out. Obama's only weakness there was in believing they were for him, instead of against the republicans.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 4:48AM
is good
العاب | 4.11.12 @ 3:43PM
thank you
nic ......