RayGun: Not just stupid but evily so
- Thread starter Nuggler
- Start date
I have to agree with the premise. Reagan was certainly the most overrated president of modern times. For a man of such limited accomplishments it seems strange that he is held in such high esteem. Most of his presidency was an unqualified failure. When his mini-reign of terror was over he left US social infrastructure in shreds; massively increased the US national debt, and presided over the collapse of 5,000 US banks.
His only real accomplishment - ending the Cold War, an event for which Mikhail Gorbachev rightly received the Nobel Prize. Interestingly, Reagan could have been co-winner of the prize, but it was obvious that without Gorbachev the Cold War would not have ended. That fact, and Reagan's support for brutal dictators around the world kept him from having any chance at the prize.
In between dealing with Gorbachev (his only real foreign policy success) Reagan did his best to push the world closer to nuclear confrontation by instituting failed programs like SDI and insulting communist leaders whenever possible.
His only real accomplishment - ending the Cold War, an event for which Mikhail Gorbachev rightly received the Nobel Prize. Interestingly, Reagan could have been co-winner of the prize, but it was obvious that without Gorbachev the Cold War would not have ended. That fact, and Reagan's support for brutal dictators around the world kept him from having any chance at the prize.
In between dealing with Gorbachev (his only real foreign policy success) Reagan did his best to push the world closer to nuclear confrontation by instituting failed programs like SDI and insulting communist leaders whenever possible.
I am not a great admirer of Ron Reagan......but this thread is entirely unfair.
Reagan will be remembered as a great president. He had his good points, as well as his glaring faults. Even Edmund Morris failed in his pseudo-biography Dutch to completely smear the man.........
SteynOnline - DUTCH COURAGE
Reagan was much like Churchill described Russia......"a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma"
Reagan will be remembered as a great president. He had his good points, as well as his glaring faults. Even Edmund Morris failed in his pseudo-biography Dutch to completely smear the man.........
SteynOnline - DUTCH COURAGE
Reagan was much like Churchill described Russia......"a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma"
Third rate actor that played second banana to a monkey in a kids show. Read his lines well though as pres. People don't seem to realize he was simply a talking head who took his lines from the US military/Industrial complex. It will be a toss up between him and the two Bushes for worst pres. ever. Junior wins dumbest.
I know what you mean but I don't think "buffoon" is quite the right word- I always felt Ronnie was the type of guy who was comfortable shooting the breeze with the average Joe- the mechanic, the janitor.
Yeah, that does seem to be the case alright, he's held up as an exemplar by the American right in particular, quite unjustifiably in my view, as most of it's just mythology. He didn't end the Cold War, he probably extended it by several years with his belligerent rhetoric and useless intimidation tactics like the SDI. He gave credibility to the hardliners in Moscow and helped them stay in power longer than a more conciliatory approach would have. But a lot of his detractors attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity. He wasn't a bright guy.
Yeah, but once it was obvious what was going to happen by the will of the people, he stood up and said, 'Tear down this wall'. And ever since, people believe it was his idea.
Now, that's acting ability.
Now, that's acting ability.
I know a few mental patients who exude an aura of optimism all the time but I doubt they will ever hold an elected office of any kind.
I should have said a "credible aura of optimism". :smile:
And what are her credentials? if any?
I see she is old enough to be getting senile. :lol:
I don't often argue with you Dex, but here you are dead wrong. Conciliation never speaks to evil, nor to murderous tyranny, both of which were the essence of Soviet Russia.
The only thing that saved Reagan's presidency.........his assurance, his steadfast belief that the superiority of the west,........ economic, military, and philosophic........would spell the end of the Soviet monster that had eaten so many millions of lives. That in the face of the appeasers, the doubters, the conciliators.....and history has proven him quite right. The Soviet Union no longer exists.
One can not in fair logic say that the Soviet Union would have fallen anyway......released from the necessity of total preparedness for war, released from the constant need to keep up, to devote so much of the monster's energy to its own defense, fed bit by bit by bit from the appeaser's hand, the USSR might well have held together, survived, licked its wounds, and rebounded.
Malice? A blind belief taken to extremes was his flaw as well as his strength, as illustrated by the Contra thing, and by other policies in economics and foreign affairs.......but not malice.
And I didn't like the guy, thought he was an idiot.
I was wrong, on that point at least.
On re-read....I seem to be waxing poetic today...lol
Ah for some Essence of Ronnie now.....a balm to be applied to the rash of China......
(Now I'm REALLY going over the edge....must be as I just finished watching the great film Beckett, with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole...from 1964)
If you think Ronald Reagan had anything to do with Ukrainian coal miner strikes which lead the demise of the USSR you really should go to rehab already.
If you think coal miners in the Ukraine destroyed the Soviet Union, I suggest Electro-Shock Therapy......
Agreed, but I said "more conciliatory," not "conciliation." Perhaps I should have said "less belligerent," it's closer to what I meant. Regardless, I still think the assessment is correct, that Reagan's attitude prolonged the Cold War by helping to keep the murderous tyrants in power longer than they'd have been able to manage if the West, and Reagan in particular, had been less hostile. The USSR collapsed internally under the weight of its own corruption and ideological foolishness, Reagan just happened to be President at the time it came to a head.