Well, thanks for starting my day with my daily requirement of cliched rhetoric. I should have known since you sidestepped my initial point--always a bad sign. Another sign is when you drone on and on in order to get out of direct responses to a couple of sentences.
Reagan signed an amnesty, so if the above is the best you can do--oh, Poppy was funny, too--to address the actual issues, I'll say have a nice day.
Yes Reagan did make a few mistakes. But he was also wise. For example he let Israel take out Saddam's nuclear program. Funny isn't it they knew where to hit and when. Did he send in Sec of State to say Oh wait a minute now? Bush's Road map to hell with Israel is a disaster anyone who has read the Bible should recognize.
Now as for your beloved Poppy? Who ended the F-14 project? Who even when at war was taking the nation into a massive downsizing of troops? Who was that POTUS who set policies that allowed a carrier to become unsafe for sea yet Clinton sent it out after Poppy got done with it {Three major deployments in three years} and it had a boiler room explosion? Which congress was the majority for six years under Bill Clinton yet did nothing to reverse or even stop his and Poppy's tearing down of our defenses?
People love to gripe and blame the DEMs for their dirty deeds and they should. But why excuse the GOP for the exact same thing then? Rummy was a looser Sec of Def during Fords term who actually created what Republicans refer to as the Hollow Carter Military. It was hollow when Carter got it. I remember I was in it. AWOL and desertion was rampant. Morale was zilch. Tradition was gone. That was February 1977 when I got to my ship.
When I left it in Oct 80 thanks to Carters Sec of Navy 79-80 the only thing Carter did do right actually those things were dealt with in a quick and expedited manner.
I do my homework which includes looking up actual End Troop Strength Numbers during Clinton's terms as well as ship strengths during Reagan's years. If you think the Kitty Hawk and Kennedy fiasco's immediately after 9/11 where they could not get underway was the first warning sign of bad problems you are wrong. The warning came in 1994 and was read in the halls of congress in an address to Sleepy Eyed John Warner himself.
Let me tell you something else. I don't care about your politics, your political party, or likely even your candidate. I care about this nation as the founding fathers intended it to be.
As for side stepping your point? No I didn't. The WOT is a Bush policy with the childish slogan he used with it for getting his bad ideas through and trying to label unAmerican all who dare disagree with him. Dangers we have always had and always will. Up till the post Reagan White House we managed to avoid the idea of swapping rights for security. Bush has even used the WOT to push through Fast Track Trade Authority and some are too blind to see it. Possibly our children and for certain our children's children will be slaves to China thanks in a large part to Clinton and Bush policies. All because the sheeple could not and would not open their party blinded I love my parties king eyes.