-
Coal Matters — Even in Manhattan
June 25, 2012 | 14 comments
-
An Unprecedented Two-Track Move
March 14, 2012 | 37 comments
-
He Kept His Eyes on the Prize
January 9, 2012 | 83 comments
-
A 2012 Conservative Case for America’s Future
January 4, 2012 | 23 comments
-
Trust, Don’t Verify
November 17, 2011 | 27 comments
Political Hay
Evasion of the Body Snatchers
Ronald Reagan held hostage by his countless new liberal fans.
Eleven years after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, on the eve of America ‘s great Centennial celebration, counterfeiters formed a plot to steal his body from its honored grave in Springfield, Illinois. They had plans to hold the body for ransom. The U.S. Secret Service was able, happily, to disrupt this ghoulish plot.
Today, we have a new ghoulish plot. Liberal writers are trying to steal the body of Ronald Reagan. They don’t want to hold it for ransom. Instead, they are vigorously telling us he wasn’t what we think he was.
The Washington Post recently carried a book review by David Baldacci. I see this prolific writer’s overflowing output in every airport bookstore. This time, however, Mr. Baldacci makes his debut as historian and political commentator.
In the Post, Mr. Baldacci has high praise for Rawhide Down. “Rawhide” was the Secret Service’s code name for this excellent horseman. Ronald Reagan was the first president since TR who actually could ride well.
Baldacci’s review of a non-fiction book by reporter Del Quentin Wilber advances the idea that Ronald Reagan’s heroic conduct at the time of the assassination attempt on his life — now thirty years ago — was what really accounted for his “Teflon” presidency. His courage and humor, Quentin believes and Baldacci apparently concurs, is what really formed that indissoluble bond with the American people. ” America loves its heroes.”
Indeed we do. And the Wilber book doubtless provides a wealth of information about a key episode in the Reagan presidency. As with most fiction, there has to be an element of truth to it. President Reagan himself acknowledged that the assassination attempt had given him a huge and unexpected bump in public approval. At the depths of the Iran-Contra scandal, when Americans for the first time seemed out of sorts with Ronald Reagan the man, he even joked: “I could always get myself shot again.”
The Wilber book provides fascinating behind-the-scenes reportage. David Gergen and Larry Speakes, for example, failed utterly to come up with cogent answers to anxious press inquiries about Reagan’s condition.
It was the faithful Reaganaut Lyn Nofziger who relayed to a worried nation some of the great jokes the stricken president had told. “Honey, I forgot to duck,” was Reagan’s first words to his First Lady. Nofziger also relayed Reagan’s crack to the doctors at George Washington University Hospital who were working to save his life: “I hope all you fellas are Republicans.”
Wilber reports that Vice President George H.W. Bush’s flawless behavior at the time of the shooting got off to a rocky start. Frazzled White House aides could not get through to him in Texas on a secure phone line. They finally had to communicate with him via secure teletype transmission.
Interestingly, we learn that the crazed young man, Reagan’s would-be assassin John Hinckley, was a bi-partisan stalker of presidents. He apparently also had the hapless Jimmy Carter in his sights, planning to kill the president in Nashville in 1980. Police intercepted Hinckley at the airport with three revolvers, ammunition, and handcuffs.
Sounds like a good start for a David Baldacci fiction bestseller.
Police failed to delve more deeply into this disturbed young man’s background. If they had, they might have unearthed his journal in which he obsessed over how to make in impression on actress Jodie Foster. Today, of course, he might more harmlessly have taken to the pages of FaceBook or even eHarmony.
What’s basically wrong with liberal attempts at stealing Reagan’s body is this: Reagan’s policies were essential to his political success with American voters. The economy came out of a two decades long slough. American leadership was recognized in the world. And Reagan appealed powerfully to millions of supporters of traditional values, including especially, those concerned for the Right to Life.
Baldacci and Wilber apparently forget that it was after Reagan’s recovery that the New York Times could editorialize that his administration had about it “the stench of failure.” Liberals in 1982 and 1983 confidently expected to give Reagan a drubbing in the 1984 elections.
Yes, Reagan’s miraculous survival did create a deep and emotional bond with Americans. He seemed to dispel some kind of curse. After all, no other president had been hit by an assassin’s bullet and recovered.
About the Author
Ken Blackwell, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio is Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Club For Growth and the National Taxpayers Union.
Dee See| 3.24.11 @ 7:57AM
Clint Eastwood's an even bigger CON-job
than Newt Gingrich or Pat 'RED China sellout'
Buchanan.
Putting aside our problems with whispery, stylized
cowboys genrally ---isn't anyone else noticing his
last string of movies have all been demoralizing
POST American and cunningly programing one
and all for the capstone Globalist EUGENICS
agenda (Iwo trilogy, Mystic River, Milion Dollar Baby).
And NOW he's retreading the done-to-death
'Star IS Born' which is clearly designed as
soft-porn predictive programing for bringing 'suicide culture' into the mainstream.
James Cameron's up to precisely the same thing
with his retread of 'Cleopatra'.
Oh yes-------------------------------------
Clint| 3.24.11 @ 9:07AM
Pat Buchanan:
"Impose tariffs on China; end World Bank loans
Beijing does not deserve the same preferential treatment as Britain. The US should negotiate a reciprocal treaty with China that imposes on its goods at least the same tariffs and taxes Beijing imposes on ours, and we should veto any additional World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans to China. These are nothing but foreign aid. "
Alan Brooks| 3.24.11 @ 10:27AM
The Global Eugenics Fluoridators, Mandrake.
Preverts Have Hijacked Clint Eastwood To Pollute The Pure Natural Essence Of The Precious Bodily Fluids In His Grain Alcohol And Rainwater.
Alan Brooks| 3.24.11 @ 6:32PM
I crave the urine and feces of my master Obama the Great, by ingesting them I gain power ,wisdom and strength. I live to serve and the highest service is to be Lord Obama's personal human toilet.
Katie Hussein Couric| 3.24.11 @ 8:35AM
But, but, but,,,Obama's Reaganesque now....We're ALL Reaganesque now. PLEASE SOMEBODY TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!!!
Bob K.| 3.24.11 @ 9:53AM
Thank you Mr. Blackwell for an excellent sketch about a great man in a time of personal crisis. No wonder he is still so warmly regarded, even by his detractors. He was a genuinely likable man blessed with a sense of humor who came up the hard way and became successful through honesty and hard work and a sharp intellectual curiosity.
Humphry Dumfries | 3.24.11 @ 10:00AM
"The U.S. Secret Service was able, happily, to disrupt this ghoulish plot."
More precisely could have read: "the U.S. Secret Service, under the leadership of Patrick Tyrrell, Chief of the Secret Service in Chicago and great-great-grandfather to The American Spectator's own R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., was able, happily, to disrupt this ghoulish plot..."
http://www.bitsofblueandgray.com/may2003.htm
http://www.creators.com/opinion/r-emmett-tyrrell/lincoln-in-the-library.html
jon | 3.24.11 @ 10:08AM
Reagan's success is simple to explain. People can debate all day his role in raising or cutting taxes or spending or who gets more credit, him for delivering the "tear down this wall" line or the person that wrote it.
But one thing that was singularly Reagan was his determination to explain conservatism and conservatives fearlessly and relentlessly - every opportunity he got.
Republican candidates should take note, because it's exactly why Palin is as popular as she is. She's the only one who appears to have any guts and isn't willing to take hits for what some people would call an unpopular stance.
If you think she's a dunce, then imagine the popularity of a candidate with her courage who was sharp.
Jon
www.gutfeelingbook.com - fearless conservatism
Anthony| 3.24.11 @ 10:24AM
Speaking of snatched bodies, how did little Ronnie's pathetic hit job book about dear ole dad's early dementia, do? I won't even give a buck for this crap at the summer book bin sale.
jon - I do imagine a candidate with guts and sharpness, she's called Sarah.
Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 1:43PM
Am presently reading Michael Reagan's book on his Dad "The New Reagan Revolution." Learning a lot about RR that I didn't know and am gaining a better understanding of who he was and his principles. Recommend it highly. Got my copy from my local library so it's available. Pathetic that the lefty whiners are trying to re-invent him. They couldn't carry his jock.
Vasu Murti | 3.24.11 @ 1:45PM
The Real Ronald Reagan
(this article originally appeared on AlterNet, a liberal headline e-mail newsletter, in February 2011.)
February saw the 100th birthday of America's 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan. All over the country, prominent conservatives and Republican figures were celebrating the anniversary of Reagan's birthday, claiming that the former president was "guided by strong conservative principles" and that he truly made America a "shining city on a hill" -- "stronger and freer" thanks to his leadership.
What conservatives casually omit is that many of his policies sharply deviated from what is considered conservative orthodoxy today -- like his strong record of trade protectionism and granting residency to millions of undocumented immigrants -- and that other policies he pursued decimated the middle class, ignored pressing social crises, and stood by as tyranny fermented abroad. It was these facts that journalist Mike Stark presented to right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh that left the conservative icon speechless.
Today, the Progress Report will serve to debunk the myths about one of America's most famous presidents and introduce you to the real Ronald Reagan.
THE REAL REAGONOMICS : Conservatives often praise Reagan for his "sweeping economic reforms," which included tax cuts, deregulation, and liberalized trade policies. Yet the truth is that, in the classical sense, Reagan wasn't an economic conservative at all, often radically expanding the size of government and the federal budget deficit -- just doing so in ways that did not benefit most Americans, especially the poor. In fact, many of Reagan's economic policies would be considered heretical today by the modern conservative movement for the way they deviated from what is considered right-wing orthodoxy. As President, Reagan "raised taxes 11 times in his administration."
This is a stark departure from today's conservative ideology; hundreds of elected Republicans in Congress have even signed oaths pledging to never raise taxes under any circumstances.
And while modern conservatives boast of their commitment to rein in the budget deficit, reduce the size of government, and pursue free trade, Reagan seriously deviated from those policies. He nearly tripled the size of the federal budget deficit and federal spending "ballooned" during his tenure.
And he notably used tariffs and trade controls to protect domestic industry, at one point imposing a 100 percent tariff on some Japanese electronic products, enacting major quotas on sugar imports, and establishing the largest steel tariff in American history.
And while the right may boast of Reagan's economic policies, the truth is that they helped hollow out the middle class and decimate America's social safety net. Reagan cut federal funds to cities and slashed the federal housing program which more than doubled the country's homeless population. He deregulated the savings & loan industry, which led to enormous taxpayer-funded bailouts and widespread financial industry failures, as even the Cato Institute admits was a failure.
Per capita income for the bottom 90 percent of the population fell .3 percent during Reagan's presidency while the incomes of the top 1 percent increased by 55 percent.
Even his famed tax cuts did little to alleviate strains on the middle class, with the bottom 40 percent of households paying "out more of their income in federal taxes in 1988 than they had in 1980." Rather than transforming America into a "shining city on a hill," Reagan turned America into a "tale of two cities," as former New York Governor Mario Cuomo (D) said, with the rich wildly prospering and everyone else fighting over table scraps.
THE REAL REAGAN FOREIGN POLICY:
Today's modern conservative movement champions Reagan as a man who freely brandished America's military might and sought to "stand up for freedom" all over the world. Yet one has to wonder if today's right-wing hawks would endorse Reagan's "dream" of a "world free of nuclear weapons," as he wrote in his diary -- or if they would approve of him withdrawing the U.S. military from Lebanon following rebel attacks on Marines stationed there.
And while Reagan did champion the cause of pro-democracy activists agitating against a geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union, he often sided with some of the world's worst tyrants and terrorists -- breaking with the modest human rights policies enacted by President Jimmy Carter.
He called Apartheid South Africa in 1981 a country that "strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals," and bitterly fought congressional efforts to place sanctions on the Apartheid government, eventually even vetoing Congress's anti-Apartheid act (which was later overridden thanks to a revolt of Senate Republicans).
Meanwhile, his administration sold arms to Iran in order to fund a right-wing militant movement known as the Contras in Nicaragua; these Contras went on to massacre tens of thousands of people, many of them nonviolent labor unionists or Christian theology activists.
Reagan funded right-wing terrorists and dictators across Central America; in El Salvador, the Reagan-funded right-wing regime even assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, a priest working to organize workers and feed the poor. Additionally, Reagan funded and trained the right-wing Guatemalan military, which a United Nations commission later found was a "key factor" in the military committing "acts of genocide" that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of members of the indigenous Mayan community and many other nonviolent left-wing activists.
These U.S.-subsidized human rights violations became so extreme that Congress had to eventually move to rebuke Reagan and cut off funding to countries like Nicaragua that he had allied himself with. Writing about Reagan's policies in Central America, Thomas Carothers, who was tasked with "democracy promotion" in the Reagan State Department, wrote that Reagan policies favored only "limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the United States has long been allied."
It was under Reagan that the United States armed and backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, bolstering his aggressive war against Iran, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and embittering both countries against the United States. And his administration helped lay the groundwork for Al Qaeda by financing and training an Islamist militant movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan aimed around fighting the Soviet Union.
THE REAL REAGAN SOCIAL POLICY : While leading conservative commentators have praised Reagan as having "classical virtues," defending what they believe to be a starkly traditionalist set of American conservative social principles, there are many elements of his agenda which they'd be hesitant to endorse. And of the great stains on Reagan's social policy legacy -- the way he ignored the AIDS crisis -- has all been written out of the conservative movement's history of their icon. He completely ignored the AIDS crisis, not even addressing it until his second term when he was directly asked about it. At that point, between 20,000-30,000 Americans had already died from the disease.
His administration silenced its own surgeon general, who wanted to proactively tackle the issue, and battled against comprehensive sex education. When the surgeon general was asked about Reagan's thinking on the issue, he said that because AIDS was a disease primarily affecting homosexuals, Reagan's closest advisers took the view that "they are only getting what they justly deserve."
And disturbingly, Reagan opposed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, saying that it was "humiliating to the South. He even gave one of his major speeches on "states' rights" while running for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town where three civil rights workers were murdered, an ominous "dog whistle" in support of racist elements.
Yet not every item of Reagan's social agenda was so harmful. As president, he engaged in a raucous immigration debate that ended when he signed into law legislation that helped three million undocumented immigrants gain residency and millions of more family members.
THE REAL REAGAN ADMINISTRATION :
One fact left unmentioned in conservative tributes to the former president is the widespread corruption and scandals within the Reagan administration due to the elevation of individuals to lead agencies who did not fundamentally believe in the public sector. More than a dozen administration officials had to resign following the revelation of the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan's own HUD Secretary used the agency to give Republican donors favorable housing grants. Over 20 high-level Environmental Protection Agency officials were forced to resign following revelations that they had allowed themselves to be influenced by polluters; and as the Center for American Progress' Joe Romm points out, Reagan "gutted" all of the Carter administration's clean energy efforts. Another scandal involved Department of Justice officials both engaging in piracy and then being tasked to investigate those same acts of piracy.
More "than fifty officials at the Defense Department and private contractors" were "convicted for rigging bids and falsifying results of quality-control tests," again the result of collusion between the administration and corporate power.
As the New York Times's Gary Willis wrote about the HUD scandals, "for [HUD] administrator Deborah Gore Dean," running HUD for "the benefits of family, friends and fellow ideologues" would serve the ultimate cause of driving the agency "into disrepute or desuetude."
In other words, Reagan's "conservatism" that believed that government is "the problem" spawned a network of government officials who freely used the government they viewed as illegitimate for their own benefit.
Howard| 3.24.11 @ 2:56PM
You have way too much time on your hands!
Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 1:50PM
Vasu Murti:
Do you get paid by the word?
RCV| 3.24.11 @ 2:16PM
Once again, Ken Blackwell tries to pick a fight for no reason. Pardon all of us for liking Ronald Reagan personally irrespective of our political differences. I can't say the same for Mr. Blackwell unfortunately.
Truth to Power| 3.24.11 @ 7:29PM
What a lying sack of crap. When Reagan was President there was no sentiment like the dishonest RCV claims. He was savaged and attacked by the left. Now that he is gone, he is good old Ron but just for contemporary political reasons. Kiss off RCV. You wanted the fight and you are going to get it.
Truth to Power| 3.24.11 @ 7:29PM
What a lying sack of crap. When Reagan was President there was no sentiment like the dishonest RCV claims. He was savaged and attacked by the left. Now that he is gone, he is good old Ron but just for contemporary political reasons. Kiss off RCV. You wanted the fight and you are going to get it.
Howard| 3.24.11 @ 2:54PM
I suppose in 20 years Liberals will be writing about what a swell guy George W. Bush was. Liberals despised Reagan going back to 1966 or even 1964 with his Goldwater speech. They are trying to pull a stunt implying that Reagan was really some moderate, or he accomplished nothing, but a smile and a joke. Well, the jokes on them.
Louis Jenkins| 3.24.11 @ 3:00PM
My, my, how opinion of Ronald has changed in the last 30 years. I can still remember Vasi Maturi's words as fact in many instances. However, we were very happy to be rid of J. Carter. At least we knew we were moving as a nation again. Towards what, well, I'll allow the better read to draw the conclusions there. But America was once more on the move, and the times were great! Maybe the Reagan lover Obama, once his stint is over, will give way to another Reaganesque' individual.
general summerall| 3.24.11 @ 8:39PM
A quibble about the comment that Ronnie was the only president since TR who could ride a horse well. I've seen pictures of Harding, Truman, and LBJ on horseback (and Eleanor Roosevelt rode around DC every morning), and photos of Taft ahorse in the Phillipines are amazing to behold. Ike must have ridden during the horse cavalry days, and Hoover must have had to ride across China and South Africa during his engineer days. Even Coolidge must have learned to ride old Princey through rural Vermont in his pre-tin lizzie younger days.
Yosemeti Sam| 3.24.11 @ 10:55PM
" ... the New York Times could editorialize that his administration had about it "the stench of failure." ...."
LOL.
I mean - look what it is that's reeking of failure in a Capitalist country! The nyt!
The Duke| 3.25.11 @ 9:40PM
Fact: Reagan raised taxes numerous times, cut-and-ran from Beirut after a few marines were killed, increased spending, created new federal departments, gave amnesty to countless illegal immigrants, and talked (not bombed) to the Soviets, Iranians and other bad actors in the world.
Stammon| 3.25.11 @ 11:03PM
Yeah Duke, bite me.
I was there for the "gaffe" when Reagen said; "This is the President of the United States, I have just outlawed the Soviet Union. The bombing starts in five minutes".
We laughed our asses off. And loved our country.
Stammon| 3.25.11 @ 11:05PM
It was morning in America again.
The Duke| 3.26.11 @ 9:22AM
Hey Stammon, were you there when Reagan sat down at a summit in Reykjavik with Soviet boss Gorbachev, to initiate nuclear disarmament, instead of going to War? Can you imagine any neoCon today going along with that?
Rev Trask| 3.26.11 @ 7:36PM
I wonder if Mr Blackwell is still piously carrying around that Bible like he used to when he unsuccessfully ran for Ohio governor a few years back.
Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 3:58AM
But these developments are just several further spins in an accelerating downward spiral for America that leaves our traditional prosperity, high standard of living, and national security extremely vulnerable to three looming disasters, at least two of which are likely to happen within the reasonably near future.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 11:28PM
is good