President Reagan dead at 93

[Nystul]

Aye, that's what it means! My brother was just holding a briefcase for someone in the security team though. That it was "the football" was simply a family joke. Of course, you never know :P

I bet *someone* there was carrying them. And that is both scary and comforting.

[Xbizkitl]

I hate gross oversimplification as much as I hate misinformation, and both are very evident within this thread.

Ronald Reagan, like all human beings, was a very complex man, and reducing him to the simple statement, "he was the greatest president of all time" is oversimplification. He was both partisan and pratical, resolved yet relenting, a mix of hardline rhetoric mixed with the common sense that he was ingrained with.

Despite our ideological differences, I think I would have liked the Gipper, had I ever met him. In spite of my very serious differences with ideology, I do agree with encomiums about his good spirit, and I think he is a classic example of what the American Dream can still accomplish in the United States today. His ideas may have been wrong, but he fully deserved to be listened to for those ideas, working hard to be where he was. (Obviously, I don't give George W. Bush the same latitude I give Reagan.)

I think the most memorable mistake that has been made these past two weeks is the American's public - and especially pundits- refusal to seperate the personality from the politics. (Read the current Newsweek editorial for more exposition on what this means). Indeed, most of the personal qualities they described him as were right on target: The Great Communicator, The Great Liberator, his straight fowardness, and his uncomparable wit and storytelling are all personal qualites that DO describe him. Yet, to fully encompass him as a person, we must both look at that as well as his political effect on the nation, ranging from his superb leadership (I agree) in the Cold War, to his terrible denials in the Iran-Contra affair and some of his ridiculous trickle-down economic policies. Instead, all I felt this week was conservative pressure by Republicans to further their campaign cause with his death. A particular Republican commercial I heard this week sickened me, because I think it was directly created with the ex-President's Death; "tell Kerry, pessimism never created any jobs." I agree, it could be just coincidence, but it smells like demagoguery to me.

In my opinion, the best lesson we can learn from the late President is the power of using personal experience and balance in the Great Office of the White House. I was impressed, for example, when I learned for the first time sometimes how different his rhetoric and his actions were: he raised taxes, when dogma dicated that he was feverently opposed to big government; he stood strong against the USSR, yet signed Strategic Arms treaties, being at the same time pragmatic while being impassioned. His personal anecdotes, his reliance on what happened in his small world, and his useful application of these life lessons to the larger world is something we'd do well to remember; his abhorrence of mean-spirtedness had better be learned by these candidates before they earn this soon-to-be voter's apathy.

I liked him, and I wish him God-speed to Peter's gate. He, more than any man I've seen yet, showed that ordinary people with principles and common sense, can achieve something great. Yet it would be an insult to his greatness to treat him as a caricature of greatness, rather than the human with imperfections he knew he was.

(By the way, that 98% approval rating is the most incredible bogus I've ever heard. The margin of error, I'd even bet, would be greater than the measly 2% that you felt to invent. Also, I'd also doubt the authenticity of the poll about people's responses to the greatest President of all time; when was it taken? I also doubt that most Americans know about certain things that could make a President great; I hardly knew, for example, that President Polk, an almost forgotten president, added the most land to the United States. Does that make him great?)

[Jester]

"I hardly knew, for example, that President Polk, an almost forgotten president, added the most land to the United States. Does that make him great?"

Well, he certainly set the precedent for invading Latin American nations for spurious reasons, one dutifully followed by many presidents thereafter, Reagan being notable.

Jester

[Jester]

"One thing I am sure of is that it is a lot easier to be a critic than a leader, especially when you have 20 years of hindsight and don't have to deal with any unexpected consequences for what you think would have been the best decision."

I'll remember that next time I'm thinking of selling weapons to terrorists to fund an illegal war in South America against the constitution I'm sworn to uphold.

It might not provide the best outcome. But you never know.

Jester

[kandrathe]

He wasn't a Rhodes Scholar if that is what you mean. Sometimes I find that people with very bright intellects lack common sense. Even then it is relative, and subjective. He was no Dan Quayle, and he was no Jimmy Carter. I think being a good leader requires more than intellect, it requires charisma, a command presence, good common sense, good character, and the ability to choose the right people to help you. As for bad president... Well, if you are talking about our national debt, then yes he was bad for the national debt. But, if you are talking about leading the US out of the stagnation, self loathing and the moral decay of the 70's then he was a good president. Like many presidents he has notches in the good and bad columns. Iran-contra was a mistake -- even if he was driven to try to free the hostages by negotiating with the hostage takers. It didn't work, and the net result was that the US looked bad. But, taking a strong stand against the USSR and using his bully pulpit to ask Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall was a great thing to do.

There are still some folks in the Dixie states who will never forgive Abe Lincoln for bringing the US to civil war and destroying the south.

[Minionman]

Also, there is plenty of luck that goes into making presidents good or not. For example, people remember Hoover as the one who started the depression, but he had actually been a very successul buisinessman, had organized how food was sent to help Europe during world war 1, and after was president tried to reorganize the government among other things. Compare that to Lincoln, who had run some stores that had gone out of buisiness, and in general wasn't known for anything until the Douglas debates.

About Regean, although I don't agree with what I heard of his policies, he apparently did inspire people.

I'm amazed people in the south are still mad. They didn't get industry developed, possibly tried holding it down, bullied people into voting for them in the election before Lincoln, left afterwards even though they controlled the supreme court and with moderates most of congress, were redeveloped with government money, and now people are mad at Lincoln. But that's just me.

[Chaerophon]

That level of approval occurred in the months following the attempt on his life. In his next term, it fell dramatically. Hedrick Smith's The Power Game has a great deal of insider information re: the fact that, was it not for the assassination attempt and the overwhelming popularity that followed it, his landmark budget and several other controversial moves would have been killed by partisanship.

[kandrathe]

I'm amazed people in the south are still mad. They didn't get industry developed, possibly tried holding it down, bullied people into voting for them in the election before Lincoln, left afterwards even though they controlled the supreme court and with moderates most of congress, were redeveloped with government money, and now people are mad at Lincoln. But that's just me.

I'd like to study more about the intricacies of that election, and the preceding decades politics. If you think the 2002 US election was hijacked, you haven't seen hijacked. The president in the US is actually elected by electoral votes which are cast by states and all for the same person. During the election of 1860 there were 4 leading candidates. Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in most of the slave states. He received only 40% of the popular vote.

Map of the 1860 Election Orange was a poor color choice, but you can perhaps make out the three (Ky, Va, Tn).

One of the policies of the afore mentioned Polk administration, was to turn more territory into States, which diluted the federal political power of the slave states. The expansionist policies of the US were driven by a desire to avoid a split between the north and the south. It probably did the opposite. By the 1860's, the situation was dire. Democratic disunity resulted in the first Republican US President. The south felt that five new states gave Lincoln the election, California (1850), Oregon(1859), Minnesota (1858), Iowa(1848), and Wisconsin(1849).

Before, and after the civil war, you see a rush to promote European emigration to the US. This was also to dilute southern political power and another racist fear expressing itself, as many states had more blacks than whites. So, the period from 1880 to 1960 in the south was marked by trying to keep black people from having rights, and particularly voting rights.

[Minionman]

What I remembered about the elections from that time was the way in the 1856 one southerners threatened to leave if the republican got elected. I also think about how either slave people or moderates were in control for all the time before that. And than there was reconstruction laws and the Hays-Tilden election.

Ahh, the glorious times in politics.