[namvolunteer]

This article is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, informative, well written and a great piece of sleuthing. I understand that the author had to take a few potshots at President Reagan to sell it to Slate.
I wonder how Reagan knew about Taylor before the detective and the Tribune did?
It sure knocked the legs from under Reagan’s detractors and the revisionists.

[driftless2]

Reagan's "lies" about welfare queens were widely publicized by the left as an example of Reagan's "truth stretching." But many Americans, left as well as right, knew deep down that Reagan was right. It's just that the ultra-lefties who had taken over the Dem Party were now in charge. They were full-bore in on the welfare state as a model for Dem politics.

As little as ten years earlier, many prominent Dems would have condemned the welfare state. By the mid-seventies most of them were gone, and the hard leftists in charge. Welfare was good, more people should be on gov. assistance was their motto. The last thing they wanted to do was get people off welfare.