Posted on 06/09/2004 4:26:33 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
America's greatest president has gone home. God worked through Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) 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 (news - web sites) 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 is the best! She nails it again.
I'm thinking of making this my new tag line. :)
Damn Straight !
bookmarking...
And a great tag line it would be. It is true isn't it? Ann is just so good.
"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."
She's so right. You can see this filtering through the lib media.
"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."
She's so right. You can see this filtering through the lib media.
Ann Coulter PING!
I will be off of work Friday, to watch the ceremonies live, and to pay my respects. Godspeed to Nancy and to the family, and to all of us, as we remember and reflect.
Thanks, Ann, for the perspective.
When I first read this, I thought 'We're unhappy when they bash him, and we complain when they praise him'. Then after a minute, I realized that the problem is the press has trashed him for so long, it's forfeited the right to say anything positive. Maybe the appropriate thing for the press to say right now is nothing.
Thank you ANN for exposing the leftist trash that wants to attach themselves to a man they LOATHED!!
so true....
A true example of "talent on loan from God."
bttt
Their asses were sorry then, and they're STILL sorry! (GOD - I love that woman!)
Bingo! She so right...especially as I watch these same liberals trying to now convince the American people that it was only Reagan's charm that won people over. Mario Cuoma was on Matthews' show today doing exactly this...telling us that Reagan was a lovable man, but really had no substance. He had the nerve to say that Reagan couldn't really walk with the likes of Lincoln, FDR and...even Clinton. Bullsh*t.
What Cuomo realizes and really fears...as do all liberals, is that Reagan was full of substance. He didn't just talk about making things happen (as Dems did)...he made them happen. Reagan took a country full of doubt and malaise, and in 8 short years, not only turned it around...he turned the world right-side up, again.
Ah yes. Sort of reminds me of the woman caller years ago who said something to the effect that Rush had a degree in trickinology.
>>God worked through Ronald Reagan<<
Oh that's my new one!!!!
I'm watching the speeches, in the Rotunda, on Fox. The camera panned past the members of Congress, and Nancy Pelosi looked as if she was suppressing a gleeful grin. I'm not kidding. Did anyone else notice it?
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.