The Reagan Era is Over

[TQM]

Congratulations America.

You have, it seems, 3 reasonable, articulate, bright candidates for President of your nation. There are certainly differences in their stances on issues, but McCain, Clinton, and Obama, are all strong candidates.

The next President won't be someone who can't read a brief more than a page long (Reagan). He/She won't be someone who mangles the English language (Bush sr., Bush jr.). He/She won't be someone who thinks policy should be forged via soundbites (Reagan, Bush jr.). He/She won't be a stiff (Gore, Kerry). He/She won't pose for pictures in his/her yacht wearing a ridiculous captain's hat (Kerry).

You know, I'm pretty sure, too, that the next President won't be using the oval office to cheat on his/her spouse.

What can I say? Nothing, but well done. These are the strongest candidates you've had to choose from since the Nixon era. Now I know some of you are so iealogically set, that you'll attempt to disparage this one or that. Cool off for a bit and take a step back and pat yourself on the back, knowing you've got three reasonable, bright candidates - all of whom seem to genuinely appreciate each other. It's a shame only one of them can win.

You know, if the Democrats do win, they should consider reaching out to McCain for a cabinet post. (Ridiculous? You guys don't remember a guy named Kissinger, then.)

Now - as to who I'd vote for:

Well, I really like John McCain, but I'm afraid, I think he's too old. It will be another year yet before he can actually take office. I really like him, but he should retire. I'm glad he's going to beat Romney and Huckabee (yuckabee).

That leaves me with Clinton vs. Obama. Right now, I'd support Clinton. Her nuanced position on Iraq is much closer to mine.

Too bad I don't get to vote.

 

[frasier]

Keep dreaming.......

 

[TQM]

I will.

But out of curiousity, what do you think I'm dreaming about?

 

[papasmerf]

But out of curiousity, what do you think I'm dreaming about?

The end of America?

 

[TQM]

Ah, it must be Friday.

The little ones are getting a little stir crazy. Either that, or people have been practicing their surrealist responses....

 

[LancsLad]

The little ones are getting a little stir crazy. Either that, or people have been practicing their surrealist responses....

Ah crap, he's climbed up on his bloody high horse again.


Hope he canters within range.!!!!!!

 

[TQM]

ah Lancsclad - I stuck up for you.

They said you weren't fit to eat with pigs.

I assured them you were.

 

[LancsLad]

They said you weren't fit to eat with pigs.

I assured them you were.

So true, and when they said you ate sh*t sandwiches I said that can't be true as you don't like bread.


.

 

[TQM]

you just

typed 'sh*t' instead of 'shit'.

Pansy.

 

[LancsLad]

typed 'sh*t' instead of 'shit'.

Pansy.

No, I believe the word is gentleman.

 

[fuji]

Reagan was one smart cookie, and he doesn't get enough credit for that, I think because he had such a disarming personality. Neither Bush2 nor Bush1 nor probably even Clinton1 were ever nearly as smart as Reagan. He always got the point, sometimes when nobody else got it.

 

[TQM]

Reagan was a smart cookie?

You've go to be joking. You can say many nice things about the guy, but "smart cookie" isn't one of them.

He couldn't read briefings. In his second term he was already suffering from Alzheimer's. He was likely the least smart cookie President of my life time. The people under him were generally quite competent but really he had no real hands on control - that's how Iran-contra happened under his nose.

 

[TQM]

Lancs - gentleman?

For typing 'sh*t'?

I guess typing 'f*ck' gets you sainthood?

 

[LancsLad]

For typing 'sh*t'?

I guess typing 'f*ck' gets you sainthood?

Of course it does, although being from Lancashire helps since we all know thats where God is from.

 

[TQM]

Still think

typing sh*t was a p*nsy type of thing to do.....

 

[fuji]

You can say many nice things about the guy, but "smart cookie" isn't one of them.

I diagree. Reagan did not have fancy degrees, but when he got into a dispute with people with fancy degrees, he was generally right, and they were generally wrong.

People with fancy degrees told him that his strategy for dealing with the soviet union would fail. Almost everybody told him his strategy for dealing with the soviets would fail, and they all delivered lectures and wrote articles and opinion pieces illustrating why, in very thoughtful and well argued ways, it would fail. It was all very convincing, except for one small problem: They were wrong and Reagan was right.

As with most things.

 

[lookingforitallthetime]

No, I believe the word is gentleman.

Fuckin right!

 

[fuji]

To recap, Reagan advocated for a confrontation with the Soviets at the 1976 primaries. The policy was buried by Ford, then ressurected when Reagan was elected in 1982.

He more or less immediately undertook actions that changed American foreign policy from one of containing the USSR ("detente") to one of confronting and undermining it.

At the time all the folks with fancy degrees, and most foreign leaders with the exception of Margaret Thatcher, all said the same thing: You can't win the cold war, it's dangerous, destabilizing, confrontational, provocative, threatning, and ultimately doomed.

This opinion was promulgaged by policy wonks, by academics, by diplomats, foreign heads of states, all sorts of people with fancy degrees. It was said that Reagan was a simpleton who didn't understand the first thing about foreign affairs and as a result either had no foreign policy plan, or an overly simplistic and stupid one.

People criticized his aggressive posture in hot spots around the world, his build up of defense systems, in particular and especially, his space defense initiative.

The whole thing had a plan: Reagans goal was to strengthen the productive capabilities of the US economy, then launch in a military build up which the Soviets would have to try and match, but would be unable to match. Note that it didn't even matter to him whether SDI worked--it only mattered that it _might_ work, and that the Soviets would have to try and spend money to compete with it.

We all know that in retrospect Reagan was right. There are some revisionists who like to claim this wasn't Reagan's idea, and while there were certainly others who espoused it, Reagan was the only person with significant political power ever to advance it.

In fact there was significant objections to all of this from within Reagan's own administration, and he over-ruled the objections and signed the orders anyway. It was Reagan, and not some advisor to Reagan, who single handedly pushed the US into a winning policy. Past Republican administrations, the Democrats of the day, foreign governments, with the exception of Thatchers's, were all against it.

Perhaps you define "smart" in terms of the number of degrees that someone holds, but I define it as being right more often than other people, and in that respect, Reagan was one smart cookie, apparently, objectively, by that measure smarter than any other recent president.

 

[train]

Of course it does, although being from Lancashire helps since we all know thats where God is from.

God apparantly has rather poor taste in food

Cuisine

The Ashton Memorial, LancasterLancashire is widely-known for its eponymous Lancashire Hotpot, a casserole dish traditionally made with lamb and for Lancashire cheese, reputed to be the best toasting cheese in the world. Other traditional foods from the area include:

Black peas, also known as parched peas: popular in Bolton and Preston.
Black Pudding: long associated with the town of Bury.
Bury Simnel: cross between a fruitcake and a biscuit. Eaten on Simnel or Mid-Lent Sunday.
Butter Cake - slice of bread and butter.
Clapbread: oatcake.
Chorley cakes: from the town of Chorley.
Ducks: faggots as in savoury ducks.

 

[LancsLad]

typing sh*t was a p*nsy type of thing to do.....

What do you mean "still think". That would presume that you have "thought", something we can not be in agreement on. Admit it, the high horse has caused more then one error in judgement.

You pick on Ron, you cease to exist.