The real Reagan #2 "integrity"

[techweenie]

"The Great Communicator" was known to others as

"The Great Prevaricator"

Now that we're through with five days of weeping and rending garments over the death of the 40th President, it's time for a little perspective:

"Man of Integrity" -- Not really. RR went on TV and lied to the American people about appeasing terrorists. He traded arms for Americans held hostage. He did it through a circuitous route involving drug sales. He later came back to America and said it happened and people beneath him did it and he didn't know about it. Then he said 'the buck stops here.' As if he hadn't just said it wasn't his fault.

But at least he didn't lie about anything serious like oral sex.

RR supported the Nicaraguan Contras and called them 'the moral equivalent of our founding fathers' when they were in fact, a murderous, drug-trading regime of terror fighting a legitimately elected government.

RR reacted to the killing of 241 Marines in a barracks bombing by attacking a tiny Caribbean island. This behavior was such an obvious effort to distract the American public, it inspired a movie "Wag the Dog." The reason given for the invasion was a lie.

And RR surrounded himself with the sleaziest and wackiest bunch of associates in the history of the office. Not only were there a record number of convictions or indictments (138) of his associates, making the Reagan administration "the most corrupt in U.S. history," but there was his choice of Gary Bauer, a religious zealot and vehement homophobe who wants to cut funding to AIDS research, as under Secretary of Education. Reagan's choice for Secretary of Health Education and Welfare publicly pronounced that he wouldn't do anything to improve conditions for handicapped people because their handicaps were God's punishment.

No, Reagan's integrity was more in his a style of presentation than actual performance.

[vash]

as governor, didnt he order the national guard to shoot teargas at protesting students? at berkeley? i am too young to remember details, what happened?

[techweenie]

He actually said (and this was in another post) 'if it's going to be a bloodbath, let the bloodbath begin' (referring to Berkeley students).

It wasn't a bloodbath, but three students were wounded and an innocent bystander was shot to death by National Guardsmen.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/08_reagan.shtml

[vash]

nice.

[kach22i]

My reasons for having some hate towards Reagan is/was selfish self interest. He cut my college aid, in fact the fighting with Congress held it up until the next school season nine months later. That's when dependent and well off students said I was looking for a hand out like welfare, and a entitlement that I should not get.

All I wanted was what I was promised, I was forced into nightschool working full time for the next nine years for a four year degree. Thanks for wasting my twenties you washed up actor- rest in peace.

Below is an article for reading:

Published in the June 28, 2004 issue of The Nation
The Gipper's Economy
by William Greider


The Gipper had a certain goofiness about him that was impossible not to like. He told "war stories" borrowed from old movies with such sincerity you were sure he must have been there. He was a famous football hero ("win this one for the Gipper") and also a handsome cowboy depicted on horseback in his 1980 campaign posters (but without his six-shooters). He taught wacky science lessons (trees are a leading source of air pollution) and delivered many dewy-eyed tributes to American heroes, some plucked from yesterday's headlines, some recycled from his rheumy memories of World War I. Whether you came to canonize the man or ridicule him, he was always great material. Historians, I think, will someday rank him right up there with Warren Harding.

Reagan was a fabulist. He told stories-often charming, sometimes loony-in which sentimental images triumphed over facts, warmth over light. So it is entirely appropriate today that the major media, draped in mourning, are solemnly fictionalizing his presidency. Reagan spun them around brilliantly, used the White House reporters and cameras as hapless props in his melodrama, ignored the tough questions and stuck unyieldingly to his scripted version of reality. This was partly conviction, partly the discipline of an "old pro" movie actor. It appears to have worked with the press. Their memorials to the "Ronald Reagan story" sound more like his fables than the events I witnessed.

What's left out? For one thing, a chilling meanness lurked at the core of Reagan's political agenda (always effectively concealed by the affability), and he used this meanness like a razor blade to advance his main purpose-delegitimizing the federal government. Race was one cutting edge, poverty was another. His famous metaphor-the "welfare queen" who rode around in her Cadillac collecting food stamps-was perfectly pitched to the smoldering social resentments but also a clever fit with his broader economic objectives. Stop wasting our money on those lazy, shiftless (and, always unspoken, black) people. Get government off our backs, encourage the strong, forget the weak. In case any white guys missed the point, Reagan opened his 1980 campaign in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in the 1960s. His speech extolled states' rights. The tone was sunny optimism.

The chemistry worked partly because it coincided with a historical shift already under way. Beyond movie scripts, Reagan was authentic in his convictions-he brought the flint-hearted libertarian doctrines of Hayek and Friedman to Washington and put a smiling face on the market orthodoxy of "every man for himself." Democrats had lost their energy and inventiveness, they were associated with twenty years of contentious reforms, turmoil and conflict (and sought relief, not by rebuilding their popular base with new ideas, but by cozying up to the business lobbies). In the end, the only folks who got truly liberated by

Reaganomics were the same people who had financed his rise in politics, the Daddy Warbucks moguls from California and corporate behemoths like General Electric.

Reagan's theory was really "trickle down" economics borrowed from the Republican 1920s (Harding-Coolidge-Hoover) and renamed "supply side." Cut tax rates for the wealthy; everyone else will benefit. As Reagan's budget director David Stockman confided to me at the time, the supply-side rhetoric "was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate." Many middle-class and poor citizens figured it out, even if reporters did not.

Reagan's great political accomplishment was ideological-propelling the ascendancy of the right-but the actual governing results always looked more like hoary old interest-group politics. Wealthy individuals, corporate and financial interests got extraordinary benefits (tax reductions and deregulation) while the bottom half got whacked whenever an opportunity arose. His original proposition-cut taxes regressively, double military spending, shrink government and balance the federal budget-looked cockeyed from the start. Yet when the logic self-destructed in practice, conservatives were remarkably content, since they had delivered the boodle to the right clients. After my notorious account of Reagan's economic failure, based on my conversations with Stockman, was published in the December 1981 Atlantic Monthly, the Gipper likened me to John Hinckley, the would-be assassin who shot him. So much for Mr. Nice Guy.

Both parties would spend the next twenty years cleaning up after the Gipper's big mistake. They collaborated in an ongoing politics of "bait and switch"-raising taxes massively on working people through the Social Security payroll tax, while continuing to cut taxes for the more affluent and to whittle down government aid for anyone else. The Gipper had taught Washington an important new technique for governing-how to fog regressive tax cuts past the general public without arousing voter retribution (the media can be counted on to assist). The trickery continues to succeed. Pre-Reagan politics used to address various economic inequities. The great injustice confronted by George W. Bush was the estate tax on millionaires.

Reagan's stubborn optimism did refresh the national spirit, no question, and it certainly powered his political successes. He gave us a television-era remake of Warren Harding's "return to normalcy." But in hindsight, I have come to think that the illusions fostered by his sunny messages perhaps did the gravest economic damage. Things were not normal, they were deteriorating and leading toward a chasm of growing inequalities. The rending of the American middle class, the stagnation of industrial wages, the relentless loss of US manufacturing-these great wounds to general prosperity were all visible during the Reagan era, but instead of addressing them honestly, his policies further aggravated the consequences. The Gipper insisted, no doubt sincerely, that it was "morning again in America." People wanted to believe this, and politicians of both parties learned from his cue-wave the flag and avoid bad news. Ronald Reagan launched the great era of false triumphalism that continues to this day among American leadership. The current generation lacks his charm and is therefore less successful at hiding the truth.

[Moneyguy1]

Well, GWB likes to think of himself as RR's successor.

There may be some truth to that, albeit without the charisma.

[techweenie]

Moneyguy1: "Well, GWB likes to think of himself as RR's successor."

Maybe in more ways than one.
------------------------------------------
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON

Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 4, 2004, 06:15

President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state."

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

"It reminds me of the Nixon days," says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That's the mood over there."

In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be "God's will" and then tells aides to "**** over" anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.

"We're at war, there's no doubt about it. What I don't know anymore is just who the enemy might be," says one troubled White House aide. "We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing."

Aides say the President gets "hung up on minor details," micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues.

"This is what is killing us on Iraq," one aide says. "We lost focus. The President got hung up on the weapons of mass destruction and an unproven link to al Qaeda. We could have found other justifiable reasons for the war but the President insisted the focus stay on those two, tenuous items."

Aides who raise questions quickly find themselves shut out of access to the President or other top advisors. Among top officials, Bush's inner circle is shrinking. Secretary of State Colin Powell has fallen out of favor because of his growing doubts about the administration's war against Iraq.

The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."

God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration's lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft "the Blues Brothers" because "they're on a mission from God."

"The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion," says one aide. "They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God."

But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them "****ing *******s" in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him "unpatriotic" or "anti-American."

"The mood here is that we're under siege, there's no doubt about it," says one troubled aide who admits he is looking for work elsewhere. "In this administration, you don't have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President."

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the record.

[Staylo]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/13/politics1705EDT0539.DTL

Former diplomats, retired military leaders to call for Bush ouster

Sunday, June 13, 2004


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(06-13) 14:05 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

Angered by Bush administration policies they contend endanger national security, 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers are urging Americans to vote President Bush out of office in November.

The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, does not explicitly endorse Democrat John Kerry for president in its campaign, which will start officially Wednesday at a Washington news conference.

The Bush-Cheney campaign said Sunday it would have no response until the group formally issues its statement at the news conference.

Among the group are 20 ambassadors, appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, other former State Department officials and military leaders whose careers span three decades.

Prominent members include retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East during the administration of Bush's father; retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., ambassador to Britain under President Clinton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan; and Jack F. Matlock Jr., a member of the National Security Council under Reagan and ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.

"We agreed that we had just lost confidence in the ability of the Bush administration to advocate for American interests or to provide the kind of leadership that we think is essential," said William C. Harrop, the first President Bush's ambassador to Israel, and earlier to four African countries.

"The group does not endorse Kerry, although it more or less goes without saying in the statement," Harrop said Sunday in a telephone interview.

Harrop said he listed himself as an independent for years for career purposes but usually has voted Republican.

The former ambassador said diplomats and military officials normally avoid making political statements, especially in an election year.

"Some of us are not that comfortable with it, but we just feel very strongly that the country needs new leadership," Harrop said.

He said the group was disillusioned by Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and a list of other subjects, including the Middle East, environmental conservation, AIDS policy, ethnic and religious conflict and weapons proliferation.

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Thats going to take a few campaign buck$ to refute.