Posted on 05/12/2012 4:45:08 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
The Republican Party has drifted so far to the right and become so partisan in recent years that President Ronald Reagan wouldn't even want to be a part of it, former Nebraska GOP senator Chuck Hagel told The Cable.
"Reagan would be stunned by the party today," Hagel said in a long interview in his office at Georgetown University, where he now teaches. He also serves as co-chair of President Barack Obama's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Reagan wanted to do away with nuclear weapons, raised taxes, made deals with congressional Democrats, sought compromises and consensus to fix problems, and surrounded himself with moderates as well as Republican hard-liners, Hagel noted.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecable.foreignpolicy.com ...
Oh and as to immigration...the Bolles -Simpson bill was supposed to be ONCE and NEVER again.
I get tired of yokels who want to repaint Reagan’s term in office to serve their meme
I suggest you read up on history. Reagan lowered the rates from 70% down into the 20s. Later, in a deal with the democrats to pass other legislation, he raised them a few points.
If I lose 50 pounds, and gain back 5....in your world, I gained weight.
The GOP is getting ready to nominate the former governor of Mass. MA of course is a well known den of extremists. This idea that the GOP is now extreme with Romney gettng the nod is crazy. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs crazy. It really is unhelpful for any Republican to parrot these dim talking points. Dems have soldiers who fall on their swords to pass a bill and the GOP has clowns like Hagel.
All this does is reinforce the fearfulness in DC of We the People who agitate for Constitutional Government.
Right. Because its way too liberal.
Hagel realized that he waaaaaay overstayed his welcome and was turning out to be a first class RINO. If he stayed, he would of been seriously primaried and most likely defeated.
When Hagel left, the door hit ‘em where the good Lord split ‘em.
Chuck is so full of crap it runs out of his ears. If anything, both parties have drifted left to the point the Democrats are becoming communists and the Republicans are becoming socialists. Reagan wouldn’t fit in either, to be sure.
Chuck, I think Ron would identify even less with today’s Democrats.
Hagel is just another”RINO-WHINER”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chuck Hagel is full of sheite!
Ronald Reagan would be rejoicing at the rise of the TEA parties!
But not for the reasons he wrote.
“Republican Party has drifted so far to the right and become so partisan in recent years”
LOL!
Had Reagan lived this long, his party would have left him TWICE.
The purpose of this Geriatic Old Plotters article is found right here:
“How Romney positions himself in the run up to the election and whether that results in a win or a loss will have a huge effect on the direction of the Republican Party for years to come, he said. ... You may not like government, but it has to work.”
This is merely preparation for the leftward lurch that the GOP has in store for the base, and to justify the ever shaking etch a sketch of its most left wing, amoral and hollow candidate in its entire history.
Romney is going to win, and America will have traded a Nero for a Diocletian.
You are correct in the relative shifting of the two parties.
Reagan would identify with the Tea Party.
About all that I got out of reading that was, “Chuck Hagel blah blah blah blah blah sour grapes...
Oh yes, the all powerful, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!
That's why the federal government has become smaller every year.
That's why federal spending has dropped each year.
That's why there is no more deficit spending.
That's why the national debt has been paid off.
That's why abortion and the killing of abortion survivors has been made illegal.
That's why there are fewer Nanny-State laws every year.
That's why each year there are fewer laws pushing political correctness on us.
That's why there are fewer people on welfare and food stamps each year.
That's why humongous socialist programs like federal government health care were never passed into law.
That's why republicans never voted to approve the nominations of socialits to the supreme court.
That's why republicans blocked the nomination of a known racist as Attorney General.
In the eyes of certain FReepers, Reagan was a RINO - he cut and ran from Lebanon, gave amnesty to illegals, and raised taxes (even though he CUT taxes). In their eyes, HE’S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
In the eyes of certain FReepers, Jesus Christ was a RINO - He befriended and forgave tax collectors, advised people to pay their taxes to the government, and consorted with known prostitutes. In their eyes, HE’S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Which begs the question, why have we ended up with Bishop Willard from Planet Kolob as our potential nominee? Because in the case of every conservative candidate, the cry went out: YOUR GUY’S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
The FReeper’s Definition of Conservative: “It sure as hell ain’t YOU!!!”
If you sometimes miss Bill Clinton, perhaps you need a memory refresher:
1) Clinton’s own words show his often expressed innate hostility to, and utter contempt for, the core principles of the American founding:
``If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993
``The purpose of government is to reign in the rights of the people’’ –- Bill Clinton during an interview on MTV in 1993
``We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…that we forget about reality.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, quoted in USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A, ``NRA change: `Omnipotent to powerful’’’ by Debbie Howlett
“When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly… that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare… However, now there’s a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there’s too much freedom. When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.” – Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995
2) Clinton inevitably pursued his own political advantage at the expense of American interests and national security. Here is just one of many possible examples:
It is well documented that Clinton and the Democrats took illegal campaign money from groups and individuals tied directly to the Chinese People’s Republican Army. It is therefore not surprising that In January 1998 Clinton went against the advice of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Pentagon experts by lifting long-standing restrictions against the export of American satellites to China for launch on Chinese rockets. Not only did he move control over such decisions from the more security-focused State Department to the Commerce Department, but he intervened in a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications, retroactively enabling Loral to sell critical missile technology to the Chinese. Interestingly enough, Clinton’s decision was made at the request of Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, whose earlier $1.3 million campaign donation made him the single biggest contributor to the Democratic election effort.
The result, as stated eloquently by syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, was that “the Democrats got money from satellite companies and from Chinese communists; China got supercomputors, advanced production equipment and missile technology; Loral got its satellites launched at bargain basement prices . . . and the transfer of sensitive missile technology gave China [for the first time] the capability of depositing bombs on American cities.” Incidentally, Loral ultimately failed to benefit from this permanent injury to America’s security interests: in July 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, and in order to raise cash was forced to sell its most profitable business – a fleet of communications satellites orbiting over North America.
3) On two occasions, Clinton used military action for the specific purpose of distracting the American public from the fallout of the Lewinsky affair:
• On August 20, three days after Clinton finally admitted publicly to the Lewinsky affair, the news media was poised to focus on that day’s grand jury testimony by Monica Lewinsky. That same morning, Clinton personally went on national television to gravely announce his bombing of a Sudanese “chemical weapons factory,” and a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. It was the first time most Americans ever heard the name of Osama bin Laden. The factory bombing in Sudan killed an innocent night watchman, but accomplished little else. It later was proven that the plant was making badly needed pharmaceuticals for people in that poverty-stricken part of the world, but no chemical weapons.
Several months later, the U.S. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, stated: "...the evidence indicates that the facility had no role whatsoever in chemical weapons development." Kroll Associates, one of the world's most reputable investigative firms, also confirmed that there was no link in any way between the plant and any terrorist organization. As for the Afghanistan bombing, it failed to do any damage at all to bin Laden or his organization. Clinton’s action was accurately characterized by George W. Bush when he said right after 9-11: "When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.
Clinton’s pointless and murderous military actions did not make Americans safer that day, although they did destroy an innocent life, and for all the good they did certainly could have been delayed in any case. But they did succeed in diverting media attention from Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony for a 24-hour news cycle, which was the main point. So I guess, they weren’t a total loss.
•On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action. Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."
Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.
The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.
Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year.”
Whether or not one buys Clinton’s assessment of that mission, it is difficult to believe that its timing was so critical that it required commencement virtually at the moment the House was scheduled to vote on the impeachment. I think the most reasonable conclusion is that Clinton cynically deployed US military assets and placed military personnel in harm’s way for purely political reasons.
4) Clinton’s reckless sexual behavior was a threat to American national security:
Clinton and his supporters have been very effective in persuading large numbers of Americans that the Lewinsky scandal was “only about sex.” But I see a bigger issue here, because Clinton is on record as saying that he would have done anything to keep knowledge of the Lewinsky affair from becoming public.
To me, that statement raises a very serious question: What if, instead of sending her recorded Lewinsky conversations to Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had instead secretly offered them for sale, say, to the Chinese government? Or to the Russians? Or even to agents of Saddam?
What kind of blackmail leverage would those tapes have provided to a foreign government in dealing with America on sensitive trade, security or military issues? One of the few things Clinton ever said that I believe is that he would have done anything to keep the Lewinsky affair secret. Given his demonstrated track record of selling out American interests for personal or political gain (and there are more examples that I could have cited here), how far would he have gone in compromising America’s real interests in order to protect his own neck when threatened with blackmail?
Pretty far, I believe. Equally distressing is the prospect Clinton might, in fact, have succumbed to foreign black mail on other occasions in order to hide different sexual episodes that ultimately did not become public. There is no way to know, of course, but I prefer presidents for whom such a scenario is not a plausible possibility.
And don’t even get me started on the war crime in Kosovo.
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.