Mark Steyn - Media met its match

Washington Times ^ | 6/11/04 | Mark Steyn

[kattracks]

All weekend long across the networks, media grandees who had voted for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, just like all their friends did, tried to explain the appeal of Ronald Reagan. He was "The Great Communicator." He had a wonderful sense of humor, he had a charming smile. Self-deprecating. The tilt of his head. Twinkle in his eye.

[clooney4824]

Mark Steyn is the best!! What a wordsmith!

[lonevoice]

Another homerun for Mark Steyn.

"The Great Communicator" was effective because what he communicated was self-evident to all but our decayed elites

The more things change the more they stay the same.

[185JHP]

Knows a lot of 'em, and uses 'em well.

[lonevoice]

"Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal" - Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.

Among Reagan's accomplishments were to "stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries." - Mikhail Gorbachev

"I consider Ronald Reagan one of the greatest U.S. presidents since the World War II because of his staunch resistance to communism and his efforts to defend human rights" - Yelena Bonner, widow of Soviet dissident Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov

"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989." Lech Walesa

Not bad. Not bad at all

[beaversmom]

ping

[NonValueAdded]

Peter Robinson, the speech writer who wrote the famous "tear down this wall" speech the other day explained how that phrase came to be. Conventional wisdom held that the German people "had gotten used to the wall" and there was no point in dwelling on it. Peter went out among the people to get a sense of their sentiment and learned they had strong feelings about the wall. He penned the famous phrase and everyone down the line tried desperately to have it removed from the speech. The State Department was apoplectic! Reagan asked Peter to explain why he wrote it that way, understood the meaning, agreed with it completely, and overrode everyone. He kept in the phrase and delivered the address. Important concepts communicated simply and clearly.

[NonValueAdded]

PS. I'm sure there is a better explanation than mine in Robinson's book, "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life"

[eureka!]

+

[FreedomPoster]

Ping list ping.

[Pokey78]

Thanks!

[knighthawk]

Ping

[secret garden]

Thanks for the ping.

[metesky]

Great un-excerpted column, kattracks.

I really appreciate your pings, Pokey.

[Aeronaut]

Not bad. Not bad at all

[Fiddlstix]

A Great Article. Thanks for posting it.
God Bless President Reagan.
He is now in the arms of God.
God Bless America!

[Paul_B]

Very moving. Great, great job.

[aculeus]

The elites were stupid about Reagan in a way only clever people can be.

[MeekOneGOP]

Great article !

[dead]

He always says it best.

Edmund Morris is a fey boob, btw.