Posted on 01/05/2009 9:27:52 AM PST by rabscuttle385
You won’t get any flames from me.
As far as China goes, H.W. Bush was regarded as a preeminent world expert on China, and pulled some amazing victories against them, which will likely never be mentioned as such, as it would diminish the victory.
H.W. Bush was also gifted as a strategist, conceiving a concept called “linkages”, which added a third dimension to international strategy. W. Bush, for his part, has likely developed this Bush family capability into the realm of computing. Even before he had entered his first presidential race, W. Bush had locked up the Republican contributors, and begun construction of his Crawford, TX White House, which was finished shortly before he entered office.
In other words, while everybody else is limited to playing checkers, the Bush family are mastering chess. Taking into account thousands of variables, they may have achieved a “no loss” scenario on which to base their decisions.
Planning ahead by at least six months, for decades in the future, makes it very problematic to take on the Bush family, who will likely run circles around you without you even knowing it.
As far as the US and China are concerned, both sides have been deeply engaged in force modernization, anticipating a war between us, since the early 1980s.
But if Ron Paul's assessment of Reagan's administration is “a failure” it says much more about Ron Paul than about Ronald Reagan.
At least put it in context. Ronald Reagan promised to reduce the size of government and then changed that to reducing the growth of government" I was around during Reagan and voted for him, and I was disappointed in him on that issue, too.
Ronald Reagan was a great president, but he wasn't "a god" or "a holy picture". RR was also a politician, who also occasionally said one thing to get elected, and then did another -- just like every other politician alive. It's one thing to love and respect RR's memory, it's another to deify RR as though he was some perfect politician and perfect human being who was too good to be criticized about anything. To those who lived through the Reagan years, and especially those who knew RR personally like Ron Paul did, RR's percieved failures are fair game.
MR. RUSSERT: You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"
REP. PAUL: Well, I'll bet you any money I didn't use the word traitor. I'll bet you that's somebody else, so I think that's misleading. But a failure, yes, in, in many ways. The government didn't shrink. Ultimately, after he got in office, he said, "All I want to do is reduce the rate of increase in size of government." That's not my goal. My goal is to reduce our government to a constitutional size. Completely different. I think that--matter of fact, he admitted in his memoirs that he had a total failure in Lebanon, and he said he relearned the Middle East because of that failure. And so there--he--you know, he...
MR. RUSSERT: But if he's a total failure, why are you using, using his picture in your brochure?
REP. PAUL: Well, because he, he ran on a good program, and his, his idea was a limited government. Get rid of the Department of Education, a strong national defense....."
As for the rest of your insults to Ron Paul supporters, they're not even worth responding to.
I’ve thought this for a long time. We have too many troops in too many countries and it makes no sense to keep them there, especially in the countries that are perfectly capable of defending themselves.
Isolationism involves restricting trade, as in high protectionist tariffs and such, in addition to keeping the military at home. Paul is in favor of the latter, not the former. That makes him him a non-interventionist not an isolationist IMO.
As I said, as a judgment call that one speaks volumes of Ron Paul's judgment. As for his associations, those speak for themselves. You lay with dogs with dogs you get fleas. You give lip service to truthers and play along with their game you get associated with non-serious kooks and fringe elements.
Which is why my conversation with you is ending right now. Don't need fleas!
“We should follow the foreign policy advice of the Founders – friendship and commerce with all nations.”
Does that really sound like non-participation to you??
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