Posted on 06/08/2004 1:41:53 AM PDT by ambrose
Reagan has the last laugh, as he should
Remove the filler, and here's the national media's obituary for Ronald Reagan in 12 words: "Great communicator. Star Wars. Trickle down. Iran-Contra, Iran-Contra, Iran-Contra." Of course, it's much longer than that. There's a lot more in there about Iran-Contra, I think. But that's what we get when we turn our first draft of history over to the liberal elites. It's like giving firearms to chimpanzees. Someone is gonna get shot to pieces. In this case, it's the Reagan legacy. Even after he is dead and long gone with Alzheimer's for years, they still fear him too much to trust us with the truth. So we get the rewrite from 1984 - the date of his historic landslide and the title of the book that describes how the media distort his achievements. Labels invented by his critics are glued to Reagan like a stubborn bumper sticker. They are so common it's easy to forget they are insults designed to propagate myths. • "Great communicator" was invented to tell us he was "just an actor" who delivered ghost-written speeches. That was before Democrats discovered that Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin are political geniuses. Reagan was a dunce, they said - and they're still saying it about conservatives. It's a common delusion among left-wing intellectuals: I'm smart, therefore anyone I disagree with is stupid. Reagan punctured that bag of gas with pinpoint humor. He showed us that intellectuals without any moral vision are as useless as empty peanut shells. Reagan was not just smarter than his critics - he saw through the clutter and noise of the chattering "experts" and named the names of our enemies: bloated government, swelling taxes, communism, weak defense and anti-American cynicism. He was not just a great communicator - he was a leader who communicated great truths. • "Star Wars" was the mocking label used to make his Strategic Defense Initiative sound like a science-fiction fantasy. But SDI worked. It caused the Soviet Union to overheat and take a permanent pit stop in the arms race. That set millions of people free from the "evil empire." Today, space-based missile defense is hardly a fantasy. • "Trickle down" was used to ridicule Reagan's promise that tax cuts would revive the economy. Editorial cartoonists could wallpaper the Berlin Wall - if it still existed - with their predictions that only the rich would benefit, and the rest of us would only get a trickle. But Reagan's policies irrigated an arid economy for everyone for 20 years. • Iran-Contra was no Watergate or Lewinsky. Turns out the "scandal" was that a few of the president's men ignored Democrat appeasers in the Senate to prevent another Cuba in Central America. The TV showdown with Ollie North made the Democrats look like modern Joe McCarthys, waving around a secret list of known anti-communists. Reagan is still being defined with insulting labels. And I think he's probably still having the last laugh - at himself. "I thought that remark accusing me of having amnesia was uncalled for," he once joked. "I just wish I could remember who said it." He made a jaded nation believe in itself, and proved conservative ideas work. For all of us who left the left behind during the Reagan years, his best epitaph is something he said to the doctors when he was wheeled into an emergency room after being shot: "I hope you're all Republicans." E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.
"It's like giving firearms to chimpanzees. Someone is gonna get shot to pieces."
HAAAAAA, thats funny.
"It's like giving firearms to chimpanzees. Someone is gonna get shot to pieces."
HAAAAAA, thats funny.
The more I read about this man, the more I love him.
The more I read about this man, the more I love him.
Lets not forget kerry was working with the Sandanista's against Reagan.
If the dems were smart they would not taunt the american people about Iran contra. It could turn a lot of Reagan democrats to Bush. The american people are already fed up with the lopsided liberal media that won't report the news.
Not only that: Ollie was on the political track. He was a real hero, photogenic and very bright. Kerry had to bring him down not just for Ortega and company, but to clear his own future path. So, most likely with intel from Ortega, Kerry launched the investigation into Iran-Contra, which also was hoped to make Carter's failures less apparent (this failed, of course).
However, Kerry lacked the juice to lead the hearings and, as a consolation prize, was given the MIA-POW brief. In this capacity, he totally sold out our men still in Vietnam and frustrated our attempts to bring back bodies of our dead. This was a one-two punch aimed entirely at obviating the US military's claim to never leave any American soldier in enemy hands.
From the second he returned home from Vietnam, Kerry never stopped trying to harm America and benefit the communists around the world, while helping himself politically w/our enemies. He is still at it.
When this election is over and Kerry is toast, I hope Ollie North will write more on the history of that incident.
Did you read Ollie's novel - MISSION COMPROMISED? In the story, Ollie wrote himself in as one of the characters. The main hero, holding the same job that North had during the Reagan administration, asks North what was his biggest mistake. Ollie answers his biggest mistake was believing the bs that he was the only one for the job, that he was the man, etc., etc. I thought that was a very honest moment of the book.
Bump for later. Great editorial on a great man!
His wit was just one of the many reasons we loved him. For 8 years he was the most intelligent man in Washington.
--- Kerry launched the investigation into Iran-Contra,---
I was not aware of this. I hope it gets more notice as the campaign goes on.
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