Posted on 08/14/2009 9:51:18 PM PDT by Wanpeirui
President Barack Obama has rightly been regarded as the liberal equivalent of Ronald Reagan, if not the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt. Like Reagan, the current president combines an attractive and compelling personality with superb communication skills to blunt the hard edges of his ideology and appeal to the broad spectrum of non-ideological voters who decide most elections (and who decided the 2008 election).
Reagan also proved that it is possible, within limits, to govern successfully as an ideological president. Obama himself acknowledged this during the campaign, commenting that "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America ... He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it." For all of his talent, however, Obama has not grasped the fine points of how Reagan succeeded in advancing his agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The “new” Carter.
Bull to all this comparing to President Reagan. Reagan loved America and hated communism.
Are you freaking kidding me??

PURE B.S.!!!
Obama has no skills, other than the ability to dance like a marionette on strings, controlled by Soros and his co-conspirators.
Oh, and he reads a mean teleprompter!
Yeah... right....
Obama and Reagan should not even be spoken in the same breath. Ronald Reagan LOVED America, Obama HATES America. Reagan never wanted our country to become socialist, Obama wants this country to become Communist. Obama is a Jimmy Carter clone
Ha!
Reagan had something to say and it was backed up by 20 years of speaking substantively on a wide range of subjects.
Obama is simply a populist BS artist with a great fear of the facts, because he can’t afford to reveal his true agenda.
Kinda like saying that excrement is the new filet mignon because so many flies like it.
That’s a good analogy.
Obama IS a Jimuuh Cahtah clone. And I’ll bet you in the whole “one term” aspect, too.
Reagan was a communist, who knew? ;-)
To be perfectly clear, I do not agree that Obama has good communication skills. I think he is full of crap, and he puts my teeth on edge whenever he speaks.
Nevertheless, I thought the article was fairly good at debunking the MSM myth that Obama has anything to offer regarding leadership skills, or that in any way Obama can be compared to Reagan.
uhh,,,no.
The new Il Douche, yes. The new Reagan? No way in hell!
The article proceeds from a false premise, because it misses the most crucial difference in the election of Reagan compared with Obama.
The margin of difference in Obama’s victory was by people who elected him as a symbol, not for a specific agenda. Indeed, for the most part Obama spoke in the most general of platitudes, campaigning on the vague terms “hope” and “change.” Obama does have an extreme ideological background, but this was not publicized by the mainstream media, who held him up as a symbol of racial reconciliation.
In Reagan’s case, he was elected because of a very specific agenda that was clearly articulated in the debates and his speeches. This was in spite of unfair and sometimes vicious portrayals of Reagan in the media.
Because members of Congress understood that Reagan was elected because of his agenda, the political reality for them was to get behind the agenda in order to maintain political viability.
That is not the case with Obama; while politicians would be unwise to attack Obama personally because of his status as a symbol, Obama has no specific agenda that has been endorsed by voters and therefore should carry weight with Congress. However, Obama is fortunate to have Congress held by the same party, so he has the possibility of passing his agenda notwithstanding its unpopularity with voters, albeit at a certain political cost.
It starts off by saying Obama has an attractive and compelling personality. Right there it goes downhill. He has neither ingredient. Better to compare him with the cultist leaders that have gone down in flames through time. That’s all he was.
It would be an insult to compare him to an authentic personality of good nature and substantive character like Reagan.
“Obama” and “Reagan” in the same sentence is, well, just unacceptable.
What you said.
When in the hell did “um” and “ah” become “superb communication skills”?
Where is the vomit alert ???
Though the author tried to be too evenhanded, in a very polite way I think it is exactly his point.
Obama is a liberal. He is operating under the false pretense that if only he packaged his far left slant on things that people would buy it. Well here is the problem during the election he could get away with big speeches and no meat. Now he is faced with delivering the meat and he is still trying to give a big smile and big generalities telling people that what they read with their own eyes and what they have heard him say on record as his intentions are not what they really read or heard. He is having to con the nation.
This could be the biggest con in the recorded history of this nation with only FDR as his possible rival. He is failing because people #1 have been given every reason not to trust the federal government (hell it just crashed the economy and medicare and social security are on the verge of bankruptcy) and the nation is still bleeding jobs and we are supposed to believe the government is capable of fixing Health Care or the Climate? #2 He is looking more and more like a used car salesman. People are waking up to his liberalism, they are seeing his racist undercurrent, and seeing that he has no intention of debating or listening to anyone. Barack Obama has not escaped the legacy of his father. He is behaving more and more like America’s first third world dictator.
He’s the new Carter. If he’s incompetent he can do a lot of damage, if he’s competent he can do even more.
I visited the Reagan Memorial and presidential library in Simi Valley, CA over the weekend. To even compare the great Ronaldus Magnus to this socialist piece of excrement is BLASPHEMY.
I dropped Forbes. They have had one of Obama’s closest Chicago advisors who bankrolled his early campaign as a columnist and contributor. I will not support people who support Obama. Forbes quality had slipped too.
I suspect that in a real way, this is why Obama took the position he did in regards to Zelaya in Honduras. Is it possible that in the back of his own mind he would like, in eight years, to amend the Constitution through popular referendum and buy himself another four years or more? Certainly, he thinks this should be legal in Honduras, so why not in the US?
Fortunately, I do not think he will get that far, because he lacks the skills to pull it off.
I say: YES!!!

That’s really funny!
You are right. Obama does not have the skills and people distrust the media who are trying to protect him. He wouldn’t even have gotten elected if he had faced the scrutiny of a normal candidate. He is also our first Affirmative Action President and a clearly racist one to boot.
For your sake, I’ll include a vomit alert next time. I hadn’t realized that mentioning He Who Shall Not Be Named and Reagan in the same breath would result in so many queasy stomachs. My bad.
I didn’t even read the article but I can tell you Obama does not even compare to Reagan. It is an insult and i am so sick and tired of these mad looney leftist even trying to compare.
What’s interesting is that the left and the media have said that Reagan got elected with slick marketing and packaging. This is the furthest from the truth but it is exactly one of the biggest reasons Obama got elected.
Otoh, someone like Keyes or Sowell are incredibly elegant in their speech without a teleprompter.
Bottom line, Obama is no "Reagan".
“Barry Can Read”—the title of a children’s book, or a good reason to elect someone president?
He’ll have about as much success as “the new Reagan” as a certain company in Atlanta had with “the new Coke.” The country will almost certainly continue to strongly prefer “classic Reagan.”
I thought of exactly that analogy when I finished reading the article. People want the real thing, and there’s nothing real about BHO.
Leadership skills? Yeah, he can sure lead an economy off a cliff. Other than that, how has he led??? It is a BS comparison.
LOL!
Obama’s leadership skills? The man HAS NO leadership skills beyond an ability to speak cliches in a pleasant baritone. Pelosi is the de facto President because there is a leadership vaccuum.
The man is as incompetent and ineffectual (thank God) in the White House as he was as CEO of CAC in Chicago.
Goodness, how I miss you.
That picture puts alot into perspective. Obama likes a militant society and functions well within it. Reagan wanted a civil society with a military to protect it.
not now, not EVER! No comparison whatsoever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.