Resolute in Rhetoric, Reagan and Bush Part Ways in Deed

LA Slimes ^ | 6.14.04

[ambrose]

June 14, 2004

Ronald Brownstein: Washington Outlook Resolute in Rhetoric, Reagan and Bush Part Ways in Deed

[snip]

"I've been going back and reading quotes about Ronald Reagan, and these arguments were exactly the same," said one Republican strategist. "People said he was the most rigidly ideological president ever. There was as much acrimony in Europe toward Ronald Reagan, who was viewed as a nuclear cowboy, as there is toward Bush."

But Bush critics point to an aspect of Reagan's legacy that received far less attention last week than his rhetorical constancy: his operational flexibility on several major issues.

Although Reagan never abandoned his criticism of "big government," he did agree to significantly raise taxes one year after his 1981 tax cuts helped open the largest federal deficits ever.

And for all his denunciations of the Soviet Union, Reagan ultimately engaged in historic, high-stakes negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

[snip]

[ambrose]

And for all his denunciations of the Soviet Union, Reagan ultimately engaged in historic, high-stakes negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

More leftist historical revisionism. They portray Reagan's negotiations with Gorby as a "shift" from his prior stance. It wasn't a shift at all. Reagan did not change his stance one bit. He favored a policy of "Peace Through Strength" and "Trust, but Verify."

He said over and over in speeches that the Soviets would either come to the bargaining table and agree to verifiable arms reduction, or there'd be an arms race they could not possibly win.

I am sick and tired of the lying leftist filth who sided with the Soviet Union trying to create a false record of what happened.

Their efforts in this regard are dishonest.

And sickening.

[DB]

I totally agree.

Lies, lies and more lies.

[Texasforever]

The left is working overtime to cast Reagan as a closet liberal to defeat Bush. The right is working overtime to create a Reagan myth that no GOP candidate can possibly live up to for the same purpose. Bush needs to avoid the Reagan myth like the plague.

[GoLightly]

Be kinda cool to pull up some of what they wrote when Reagan walked away from the table in Iceland.

[ambrose]

There is no Reagan "myth". Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th century, if not our greatest president ever.

[Texasforever]

There is no Reagan "myth".

Yes there is. I agree that he was the greatest president of the 20th century but he was reviled by the right just as much as Bush is today. He was as loathed by the left just as much as Bush is today. Reagan always said the right thing at the right time and then he compromised on one thing to get the other thing he wanted.

[conservative in nyc]

The Reagan "myth" is not about President Reagan himself, but that he was beloved by all during the 80s, including all Democrats, Europeans and liberals worldwide. He wasn't. The Democrats resented his power and the way he yielded it. They ridiculed him as a senile idiot that was short on substance. I remember them derisively using the title of his movie "Bedtime for Bonzo" to describe President Reagan during the 80s. The protests in Europe over basing nuclear weapons there were larger than anything seen before the Iraq war. And liberals despised him for cutting taxes and trying to cut their pork --- wasteful social programs.

[ambrose]

he was reviled by the right just as much as Bush is today.

Nonsense.

[ambrose]

Of course the left hated Reagan with a passion! Bernard Shaw recently admitted that the media's coverage of Reagan was biased and sucked.

Difference is, Reagan had some basic communication skills and was able to go around these Marxist traitors and speak directly to the American people.

[goldstategop]

Reagan may have acted pragmatically but he never renounced his core beliefs.

[nopardons]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...selective memory,I see.And so the myth goes on.

[Texasforever]

I don't make nonsense posts when talking about the far right and Reagan

http://reformed-theology.org/jbs/books/insiders/part_2.htm

[ambrose]

Okay - care to back up the assertion that Reagan was as hated by the right back in the 80's as Bush is now?

This seems like a bit of Bushbot historical revisionism.

[Texasforever]

See post 13.

[ambrose]

The John Birch Society hardly backs up your assertion. You said that Reagan was as hated by the right as Bush 43 is.

Bush 43 is disliked by a far broader spectrum of conservatives than lunatic Birchers.

[Texasforever]

The JBS WAS the conservative movement in the 80's. They were the ones that put Goldwater on the map and they were the ones that endorsed Reagan for his terms as both Governor and his first term as president. You need to bone up on history.

[Texasforever]

It is NO memory.

[nopardons]

I don't do links,but post #14 will suffice.

You suffer from selective memory disease;I don't.I have a very good memory and Texasforever is telling it as it was...not as YOU wish it were.Many on the far right absolutely hated President Reagan and if FR had been around back then,you and your cohorts would have engaged in the same assault against him,as you now do against President Bush.Purists never change their spots...they just choose to not remember that which contradicts them.

[ambrose]

Nuh uh. By the 1980s, Birchers were viewed as right-wing quacks, not much different than today's Liberty Post.

Face it, the present leadership of the Republican Party would not be fit to shine Reagan's shoes.

This entire week reminded me of what it was like to have a great American president, and speaking for myself, it would only infuriate conservatives to compare Bush to Reagan. It is a laughable comparison. It is like comparing Rutherford B Hayes to Lincoln. Why, they're both Republicans, afterall!