Posted on 06/04/2004 9:21:17 PM PDT by Rokke
Hollywood sources tell LA Weekly columnist Nikki Finke that former President Ronald Reagan's medical condition has suddenly worsened. "He really took a downslide today," the insider told Finke Friday evening. "Doctors are at the house. Things aren't good." At the start of the day, several news organizations chased down a rumor that the ex-president had died, but it wasn't true... Family members gathered at the Reagan's Bel Air home late Friday... Developing...
I feel for Nancy.....
Pneumonia has set in ....
Close family friend saying President Reagan has pneumonia...per Fox news just now.
I have been expecting this for the last 2 years.This is so very sad. :^(
I knpow. Same here. He is really tough and has outlasted many in his condition.
I love President Reagan. I will miss him.
Does anyone know if President Bush has been informed of his condition?
They can say what they want about Nancy- they have for years. But she is one tough lady to have handled all she has handled throughout their public life- all without ever having thrown a lamp or cursed at her husband in front of others.
Yes. I read earlier that he was informed when he first arrived in France.
I love that slogan, Rokke.
Thank you for pinging me to this thread - it's time for him to go; God will take good care of him now, and he'll remember again the good he did for America. We love you, President Reagan.
Reagan's health said to decline01:58 PM CDT on Saturday, June 5, 2004
LOS ANGELES Ronald Reagan's children gathered at his bedside Saturday as word reached the White House that the health of the 93-year-old former president had seriously deteriorated.
Reagan's children from his marriage to Nancy, Patti Davis and Ron Jr., were at the Reagan home in the Bel-Air area of Los Angeles, according to a family friend.
White House officials who checked on the former president's health Friday were told "the time is getting close," a person familiar with Reagan's health, who did not want to be identified, told The Associated Press. "It could be weeks. It could be months." [MeekOneGOP Update: It could be hours]
Reagan, who has lived longer than any other U.S. president, has been out of the public eye since disclosing a decade ago that he had Alzheimer's disease.
"He's 93 years old. He's had Alzheimer's disease for 10 years. There are plenty of rumors. When there is something significant to report I will do so," the Reagan family's chief of staff, Joanne Drake, said Saturday.
Three dozen reporters and television cameras clustered across the street from the Reagan's mansion but there was nothing to be seen beyond the gate and the long driveway that led to the hidden home.
Passers by gave no notice to the media mob and there were no police or Secret Service escorts visible in the tree-lined street.
Rumors about Reagan's health arose Friday and his office in California said it had received more than 300 calls over the past two days.
Mitch Daniels, who was political director for the Reagan White House in the mid-1980s, issued a statement from his home in Indianapolis upon hearing the latest news on the former president.
"Even though the day must ultimately come, it will be hard to say goodbye. Few Americans have done more for their country than Ronald Reagan," Daniels said.
News about Reagan's health came as President Bush arrived in Paris, the second stop on his trip to Europe.
Former first lady Nancy Reagan, at a fund-raiser last month for human embryonic research, described the toll that Alzheimer's has taken on her husband.
"Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him," she said. "Because of this I'm determined to do whatever I can to save other families from this pain. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this."
Nancy Reagan and others believe the use of stem cells from embryos could lead to cures for such illnesses as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Such research is generally opposed by political conservatives and many anti-abortion groups because it involves the destruction of days-old human embryos. President Bush signed an executive order in 2001 limiting research to existing embryonic stem cell lines.
Reagan celebrated his birthday Feb. 6 in seclusion at his Los Angeles home. The nation's 40th chief executive, who broke his hip in a fall at his home in 2001, has rarely been seen in public since his poignant letter announcing he had the memory-sapping disease.
In the note on Nov. 5, 1994, Reagan said, "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."
He also has a deceased daughter, Maureen, from his first wife, Jane Wyman, and an adopted son, Michael.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/060604dnnatreagan.a114e.html
Beautiful, martin!
I have thought often over the past few days of his great speech at Normandy, what, 20 years ago? "These are the boys of Point du Hoc. These are the men..." Still gives me chills.
Pneumonia has set in...
Yes, as a doctor's wife,
I know the end is likely near.
President Reagan's "shining city on the hill"
will soon be Heaven.
May God always bless and keep him.
I thank God for blessing us with President Reagan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ronald Reagan -- Pointe de Hoc, Normandy, June 6, 1984 (The 40th anniversary of D-Day) We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine-guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting only ninety could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your 'lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor'...
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
My head hurts from praying
I hope President Bush gets Peggy Noonan's assistance on the eulogy.
I pray that he is not in pain. Thankfully he is not in anguish due to his mind having been stolen by the disease.
Oh yes Rob, she should either write an eulogy
or speak at his funeral in person.
I want President Reagan to have a formal funeral
befitting him. I hope Nancy permits it.
He is so loved.
Amen .....
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