Plan B Forum

There are many who claim -- with straight faces, believe it or not -- that Ronald "Where is the Constitution of the United States that I may wipe my ass with it" Reagan "won the Cold War".

Here is a perspective well worth considering:

Between Iran-Contra and the Robert Bork nomination, Ronald Reagan's back nine [second term] is often seen as something of a failure. But the fallout from the worst scandal since Watergate helped to purge the administration of ideological zealots, empowering his moderate Secretary of State, George Shultz, who steered Reagan away from his first-term posture of Strangelovean apocalypticism. Rambo rhetoric gave way to liberal reasonableness as Reagan recognized the reformist intentions of Mikhail Gorbachev. By 1987, a new age of detente -- or better -- was at hand. If Reagan deserves any credit for helping to end the cold war, it was because he pirouetted from hawk to dove.

(David Greenberg, "The Myth of Second-Term Failure," The New Republic 6 December 2012 at p. 20.)

So you're saying that liberal reasonableness, recognising people's real intentions, and dovish policies are all signs of senility? I don't think that can be right but you know . . . you're good on these things Andrew . . . so . . .

I do not claim that Shultz's policy of dealing rationally with the Soviet Union demonstrates Reagan's senility.

If you really need evidence of Reagan's senility -- a need which indicates that you were not watching when he was President -- run a search for "Reagan senile".

I quote your subject line:

An Enlightening Take On Ron The Senile And The Cold War

That's enough

Meade

Yes, Reagan was senile. There is no longer any serious dispute about that.

Yes, when Reagan's handlers let Shultz run the show, the result was a rational policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union far beyond Reagan's grasp.

That's enough.

And, unlike what the Reaganolaters spew, it is true.

The point (to me) is that your quoted story/bit said nothing about 'senility'. Instead it gives (some) credit to Reagan for consistently following the advice of more sensible advisors than were around in the first administration.

Your point, which appears to contradict your quote, allows the most obvious interpretation that one must be senile to follow more liberal policies. Why would you choose to identify that quote with "senility" when the author did not?

Try again only this time find a quote which deals with senility. It's an interesting subject vis-a-vis Reagan.

You seem to be equating my reference to "Ron the Senile" with the idea that Shultz's policy was the result of Reagan's senility. That may be so, but it was not the point that I was making.

I referred to Reagan as senile, because he was, in fact, senile, whether that had anything to do with Shultz's poicy or not.

I also refer to Reagan as Ronald "where is the Constitution that I may wipe my ass with it" Reagan, because he did, in fact, subvert the Constitution in the Iran-Contra matter. That does not mean that everything he did amounted to wiping his ass with the Constitution. It is simply a reminder of the central fact of his presidency.

Every reference to Reagan rightly includes his incontrovertible senility. Every reference to Reagan rightly includes his incontrovertible subversion of the Constitution.

It does not matter whether any particular thing about Reagan does or does not involve either his senility or his subversion of the Constitution. His senility and his subversion of the Constitution are the two things that matter most about his presidency. They deserve to be brought up whenever his presidency is mentioned. And that is why I did so.

"They deserve to be brought up whenever his presidency is mentioned. And that is why I did so".

I get it now. You posted an irrelevant quote to give you an excuse to announce that "Reagan was senile and subverted the Constitution".

You may be correct but why not just post your fascinating idea without the quote? Well, we all know why but . . . go ahead.

Meade

You are confounding the point and the asides. Maybe we all know why; maybe not.

The point is the quotation:

Between Iran-Contra and the Robert Bork nomination, Ronald Reagan's back nine [second term] is often seen as something of a failure. But the fallout from the worst scandal since Watergate helped to purge the administration of ideological zealots, empowering his moderate Secretary of State, George Shultz, who steered Reagan away from his first-term posture of Strangelovean apocalypticism. Rambo rhetoric gave way to liberal reasonableness as Reagan recognized the reformist intentions of Mikhail Gorbachev. By 1987, a new age of detente -- or better -- was at hand. If Reagan deserves any credit for helping to end the cold war, it was because he pirouetted from hawk to dove.

Reagan's senility and subversion of the Constitution are the asides. They merit mention whenever Reagan is a topic of conversation, but that does not make them the point of every such conversation.

Again, the point is the quotation: Reaganolaters are fond of claiming that it was Reagan's bellicose attitude (his so-called "strength") which brought down the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union did not collapse -- of its own weight -- until Reagan abandoned that bellicose attitude, withdrew (albeit unwillingly) into the fog of Alzheimer's disease, and let Shultz run the foreign-policy show.

Andrew D wrote:You are confounding the point and the asides. Maybe we all know why; maybe not.

quote]
Reagan's senility and subversion of the Constitutionare the asides.

Humor me, how did Reagan subvert the constitution? I respect your constitutional knowledge, but I think that you have your blind spots (prejudices) too.

To constantly state that RR was "senile" is sophomoric in the extreme. I'm no longer surprised at the source.

EVERYONE experiences some diminished mental capacity after age 50. The quasi-intellectuals who scoff at RR are either ignorant of, or choose not to acknowledge Reagan's brilliant and insightful writings and speeches throughout his adult life, or the fact that he was the greatest political LEADER of the last half of the 20th century - indeed he was the ONLY President who clearly understood the role of a President. He defined a conceptual agenda with which the public wholeheartedly agreed, and pursued it successfully. No one else even comes close.

The fact is that even with diminished capacity, he was more than a match for the pin-heads on the other side of the political spectrum.

dgs49 wrote:or the fact that he was the greatest political LEADER of the last half of the 20th century -

That's my LOL!! for the morning, thanks Dave.

The only way you can consider Daft Ronnie the greatest, is for the entertainment value he gave, even then he comes second to GWB.

liberty wrote:Humor me, how did Reagan subvert the constitution? I respect your constitutional knowledge, but I think that you have your blind spots (prejudices) too.

Iran-Contra. I don't have time right now to go into the details, but they are out there.

"Iran-Contra" long ago became nothing more than a mantra that aging Lefties dredge out to "prove" that one or another members of the Reagan Administration were scoundrels, liars, or some other bad thing.

Ronaldus Maximus' only connections to Iran-Contra were that (1) it occurred while he was President, and (2) those who carried it out believed their activities furthered his objectives. Which was undoubtedly true.

The real scoundrels were the Democrats in Congress who refused to throw what amounted to pocket-change to the freedom-fighters, which is all Reagan wanted.

dgs49 wrote:"Iran-Contra" long ago became nothing more than a mantra that aging Lefties dredge out to "prove" that one or another members of the Reagan Administration were scoundrels, liars, or some other bad thing.

Ronaldus Maximus' only connections to Iran-Contra were that (1) it occurred while he was President, and (2) those who carried it out believed their activities furthered his objectives. Which was undoubtedly true.

The real scoundrels were the Democrats in Congress who refused to throw what amounted to pocket-change to the freedom-fighters, which is all Reagan wanted.

The only conclusion I was able to come to was that the democrats (mostly democrats) either feared the communist or supported them.

Congress specifically made funding the contras illegal.

Reagan -- through his apparatchiks who destroyed uncounted reams of documents in order to shield Reagan from the responsibility that was properly his ("plausible deniability") -- made an end run around the law to fund the contras anyway.

He used the executive power to do what the legislative power -- the power which is inherently superior to the necessarily subordinate executive power -- had forbidden.

How clearer a subversion of the Constitution do you want? What Reagan did was on par -- although the Reaganolaters deny it, because, after all, the dying did not occur on US soil -- with Andrew Jackson's subverting the Constitution by defying the judgment of the Supreme Court and creating the Trail of Tears.

I AGREE WITH YOU ANDREW. Congress made funding the Contra's illegal.

Where in Article I does Congress get the power to do this? All they are permitted to do is either spend money on something or decline to spend money on it. But can Congress prevent, say, an executive department from spending non-appropriate funds (e.g., proceeds from the sale of surplus government property)? It's an open question. Congress says they can, but so what?

And there is no evidence whatsoever that RR knew anything about the events that are collectively called, 'Iran-Contra" before the fact. In fact, given the loyalty of those involved, it is a virtual certainty that he would NOT have been advised, as the principals would not have wanted to jeopardize him either legally or politically.

And by the way, where did you get this little gem: "...legislative power...is inherently superior to the necessarily subordinate executive power"? On the back of a cereal box? It's certainly not in my copy of the Constitution.

Andrew, you are worse than a fucking bible thumper. You pick and choose the parts of the Constitution that you approve of, and make shit up to fill in the blanks when you don't like what's there. And here, you infer knowledge by the President when there is absolutely no indication that he knew any of it. As you are fully aware.

Andrew D wrote:Congress specifically made funding the contras illegal.

Reagan -- through his apparatchiks who destroyed uncounted reams of documents in order to shield Reagan from the responsibility that was properly his ("plausible deniability") -- made an end run around the law to fund the contras anyway.

He used the executive power to do what the legislative power -- the power which is inherently superior to the necessarily subordinate executive power -- had forbidden.

Andrew, I thought that loopholes were an honored part of the law. The law did not apply to individuals not employed by the US government. The dealers were retired military men but not at the time part of the US government. What they did with their profits was their business; they could have given it to any one they wanted.

How clearer a subversion of the Constitution do you want? What Reagan did was on par -- although the Reaganolaters deny it, because, after all, the dying did not occur on US soil -- with Andrew Jackson's subverting the Constitution by defying the judgment of the Supreme Court and creating the Trail of Tears.

I see a big difference between Reagan and Jackson. Jackson directly defied the SC but the Reagan administration found a loophole in a bad law.

Reagan lied about what our foreign policy was.

Secretly sold advanced weapons to the country which paid for the barracks bombing in Lebananon (which had caused Reagan to pussy-out and remove our troops, the single act which Osama BinLaden said inspired him to attack us because it meant we were weak).

Sold advanced weapons to a country which (still) hold an annual "death to America Day".

And then used the money to fund a group of murdering thugs who had assassinated a journalist on-camera and were murdering Nicaraguan peasants.

But this is the president who invited Jonas Savimbi to Washington and feted him as a 'freedom figher' when his record was of serial rape and murder and was a plague on humanity:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/feb ... iabrittain
"... Jonas Savimbi, who has died aged 67, was, for 20 years, a figure as important in southern Africa as Nelson Mandela, and as negative a force as Mandela was positive. For the past 10 years, using the proceeds of smuggled diamonds from eastern and central Angola, he fought an increasingly pointless and personal bush war against the elected government in which hundreds of thousands of peasants were killed, wounded, displaced, or starved to death. His death in fighting in the eastern province of Moxico was greeted with celebrations in the Angolan capital, Luanda.

It was a long fall from his heyday in the 1980s, when Chester Crocker, the longest serving US assistant secretary of state, and the Reagan administration's top official for Africa described him as "one of the most talented and charismatic of leaders in modern African history". Savimbi was the toast of the Reagan White House, feted by the rightwing establishment in many countries and a friend to African tyrants. He was a willing tool of the cold war, the key figure in America's and apartheid South Africa's destruction of independent Angola's nationalist ambitions, and responsible for suffering and death on a scale barely comprehensible outside his ruined country. ...

.

With Unita publicly discredited by its links with the apartheid regime, the CIA and the mercenaries, Savimbi's political career appeared to be over. But he was saved by the cold war and his usefulness to the US and South Africa. His intelligence and charisma made him easy to sell to international audiences as the democratic leader Africa needed.

By the end of the 1980s his proxy army, supplied and funded by the CIA and aided by numerous South African invasions, had sabotaged much of Angola. Swathes of the countryside were cut off from agriculture by minefields, mine victims and malnourished children swamped the hospitals and tens of thousands of children were also kidnapped by Unita troops and taken to Unita-controlled areas in the south around Savimbi's capital at Jamba.

Appalling rites, such as public burning of women said to be witches, characterised the reign of terror in which many of Savimbi's close associates were imprisoned or killed on his orders. "

This is not to mention the warm support Reagan the Traitor gave to Pinochet who said "Democracy is Dead in Latin America" after coming to power by murdering 10,000 people and torturing 30,000 more.

There is hardly a bloodthirsty dictator who Reagan would not support. He also supported Saddam Hussein ...



yrs,
rubato

Nobody busted out FDR...