Posted on 06/10/2004 1:42:56 AM PDT by kattracks
America's greatest president has gone home. God worked through Ronald Reagan on Earth and now He's taken him back. Reagan is survived by his wife, three children, and the hundreds of millions of people he saved by winning the Cold War. Thanks to him, the United States of America never ceased to be, as Reagan said, "a place to escape to" – the last stand on Earth.
No thanks to liberals, I might add. More enraging than their revisionist history of Reagan, is liberals' revisionist history about themselves. Now liberals claim they liked Reagan at the time. This is extremely believable – aren't we all fond of someone who regularly exposes us as liars, cowards and hypocrites? It's just human nature.
In fact and of course, liberals loathed Reagan. Their European friends loathed Reagan – the protests against our current president are positively anemic compared to the massive protests against President Reagan when he went to visit our dear "allies," whose sorry asses we spent billions of dollars defending against the Soviets for 50 years. Even the moderate Republicans currently trying to insinuate themselves onto Reagan's legacy weren't especially fond of Reagan at the time – especially when attacking him publicly would get them invites to the tonier Georgetown cocktail parties. Only authentic Americans loved Reagan.
From the descriptions in the media, you would think the reason Reagan was beloved by Americans was that he was an affable fellow who could tell a good joke. That's a description of Bob Dole, not Ronald Reagan.
Reagan was a March hare right-winger. He had enough faith in the American people to know that as long as the facts were clear, they would rise to the occasion and be March hare right-wingers, too. As Reagan himself said, back in 1964: "Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and me believe that this is a contest between two men ... that we are to choose just between two personalities."
Reagan forced Americans to confront the real ideological divide between conservatives and, as he said, "our liberal friends." But now liberals are trying to muddy the political waters by passing off Reagan's popularity as a result of his personal magnetism. I note that liberals were strangely immune to that magnetism at the time. Only now do they talk about Reagan's outsized personality as if he worked some sort of beguiling magic over the electorate and tricked them into supporting policies they never quite understood.
While Reagan had undeniable magnetism, what set him apart was that he had the courage to speak the truth and trust the American people. In the 1964 speech that launched his political career, "A Time for Choosing," Reagan never smiled. He told no jokes – though he did say some amusing things inasmuch as he was talking about "our liberal friends."
In the throes of the Cold War – still hot in Vietnam – Reagan forthrightly said liberals refused to acknowledge that the choice was not between "peace and war, only between fight and surrender." In words that would have come in pretty handy in Spain just a few months ago, he said liberals tell us "if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us." All who disagree with the "peace" crowd, he said, "are indicted as warmongers." To this, Reagan said: "Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace – and you can have it in the next second – surrender."
This wasn't sunny old grandpa carrying candy around in his pocket for children. After watching Walter Cronkite's coverage of the Vietnam War in December 1972, Reagan told President Richard Nixon, "under World War II circumstances, the network [CBS] would have been charged with treason."
Reagan quoted "Mr. Democrat himself," Al Smith, for the proposition that the Democratic Party was no longer the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland, but was now the party of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. (And that was 30 years before they tried to push Hillarycare on us.)
Reagan was a bulldog, completely, implacably right-wing on every issue. He was the right-wing Energizer Bunny. He never quit and he kept beating liberals. He cut taxes 25 percent across the board his first year in office; he walked away from Gorbachev at Reykjavik; he fired all those air-traffic controllers – and wouldn't let them come back even when they wanted to; he gave speeches about "welfare queens" and polluting trees; he nominated Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; and he enraged grim liberals when he warmed up his radio mike by saying, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
But now they're telling us Reagan was a "pragmatist." Well, not according to him. As he was wrapping up the Republican primaries in 1980 and moderate weenies in the Republican Party were trying to move him to the "center," Reagan said: "No, I'm not moving my positions any. ... I believe the same things that I've been speaking on for years, and I don't see any reason to change."
Thank God he didn't. Because Reagan lived, the world is a better place.
Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her most recent book is Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
marked for posterity bump
The democrat party is the "Party of Marx, Lenin and Stalin" and ann Coulter is right on target.
Kennedy was raging about the treatment of Terrorists and trying to blame GW Bush.
Where the Hell was Fatso Kennedy when the Thousands of Catholic Children were being Sexually RAPED and TORTURED by Barbaric Catholic Priests over the last 40 to 60 years that we know about.
He was as silent as Mary Jo Kopeckne, and he still is.
Isn't Kennedy a Catholic???
Kennedy is the Face of the democrat party!
I think that's factual. He waged his battles, created consensus and went home at the end of the day either a victor or least getting things to move in the right direction. And most people in the process didn't have wounds to lick at the end of the day. That cannot be said now.
I refuse to let them re-write history to suit themselves.
And yes, there were many unkind things said about Nancy, just as there have been many unkind things said about democratic first lady's by right leaning reporters. Her use of astrology was, let's say, different. He did appear shrill and high strung. It stuck because to a point it was true. Should that have been part of the debate? I don't know. But we've obviously been active in our assualt not only on Hillary because of her political aspirations, but also on Gore's wife. We sometimes went after Roselyn Carter, and she was pretty inert.
Partisan politics isn't pretty. We remember the attacks on us (our side) and forget those we make on them.
For example, Maureen Dowd has a column today which ends with her comment that Ronald Reagan was exhilirating, but right or wrong, George Bush is a bummer.
Maureen Dowd had a front page story in the New York Times accusing Nancy of cheating on her husband with Frank Sinatra.
THAT is the two-faced type of behavior I am talking about. I don't expect the media to fall all over themselves in praise, nor do I expect tacky criticism. I would appreciate it if they wouldn't LIE about their past behavior.
But fact is, there will be conservatives that will write puff pieces when Ted, Clinton, Jimmy Carter and other democratic dignitaries meet their maker.
The popular Pat Schroeder of CO was on C-SPAN this morning to explain how she coined the term the "Teflon President." She was cooking eggs for her children one morning during the 1984 Gary Hartpence primary campaign and was outraged that nothing seemed to stick to Reagan. So she said that Reagan was just like this "Teflon pan." And history was made by the smiling, smiling Schroeder, who was in a gleeful mood today. She had even considered herself running for president to succeed Reagan, whom she loathed.
You should be a huge Al Smith fan. He was the last Democrat that a conservative could have supported!
Liberals though said that Smith was jealous of FDR's success in politics and turned against the master for petty reasons. Smith did support Alf Landon in 1936. Smith was personally crushed that NY state supported Hoover in 1928.
Myself, when asked for an opinion about Clinton on his death, I will say "He made me pay more attention to politics" and then I will remain silent. I will respect his passing as a past president and neither say hateful things nor pretend I was fond of him.
Schroeder also accused Reagan of being "personally opposed" to the MLK Holiday Act, which he signed into law in 1983. She said that Reagan was also "personally sympathetic" to the apartheid government of South Africa and had no interest in getting the communist-sympathizer, Nelson Mandela, released from prison.
Listen, with all the luck and popularity that "Bill" Clinton as had, the odds of that many of his contemporaries outliving him is pretty small!!!
And if I don't, I have left instuctions with my children. :-)
Yes. Tokyo Rose didn't broadcast from American soil.
Pretty sad that "center" is now considered rabid right wing and left wing liberalism is considered the norm in the Republican Party today. Seems we have incrimentally marginalized ourselves into a corner in what use to be the conservative party.
I would (and will) vote for Zell Miller if he was running against someone like Liddy Dole, John McCain, Arlen Spectre, etc.
Not to mention the help of Perot, without him G. H. W. Bush would have had a second term, the Klintoons (both of them) would have been irrelevant in 1996, the FBI files would have never been stolen, 9/11 probably woulda never happened, and the whole world would be different today.
Thanx again Ross, you filthy SOB.
Appreciate your thoughts and insights.
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