Nancy Reagan has died

[Lord Jim]

I also have to take issue with this:

Whatever his failings as a politician

Being a politician was one of the few things he was truly good at...

To win the nomination in the first place, given his thin qualifications, (four years as governor of a relatively small state) was an impressive political feat in itself. He was helped to do this by the fact that he had chaired the committee that re-wrote the Democratic nominating rules and schedule after the McGovern debacle, so he knew how to design the best nominating strategy. He was also helped by the fact that he skillfully cultivated the liberal mainstream reporters, many of whom continue to gush over him to this very day. (I'm lookin' at you Andrea Mitchell...)

His failure to get along with Congressional leaders of his own party wasn't due to a lack of political skills. It was due to his poor interpersonal skills, as well as his prickly personality and his tediously self-righteous and sanctimonious attitude...

Then in 1980, he brilliantly manipulated the Iran Hostage Crisis to beat back the nomination challenge from Ted Kennedy; that required impressive political acumen and shrewdness...

The fact that he ultimately lost re-election in a landslide wasn't a reflection of any lack of political skills; the most skilled and capable politician in history couldn't have won given the disastrous record Carter compiled as President.

He was a godawful leader and administrator, but as a politician he truly excelled...

[Big RR]

Money greases the wheels and while the feelings are similar irrespective of the money available I promise you the problems faced trying to do the care without the money is as different as day and night.

I do not doubt that one bit.

[Big RR]

His failure to get along with Congressional leaders of his own party wasn't due to a lack of political skills. It was due to his poor interpersonal skills, as well as his prickly personality and his tediously self-righteous and sanctimonious attitude...

Perhaps, but I see that as evidence of a lack of political skills. I think Carter came into the presidency with the idea that Congress (or at least the dems) would rally behind him, but he lacked the political skills or acumen to get them to do so, and that bothered him his entire administration. I personally liked a lot of his ideas, but think he did not have the political skills to implement them. Granted he was a good campaigner, but that didn't translate into being an effective president. FWIW, I think Obama suffers form some of the same problems, although he has a much more obstructionist Congress than Carter ever did.

[Econoline]

She is nothing special on that account

to me, anyone who does that is special.

I....

Oh, wait...you were referring to the caregiving and not the oral sex?

Never mind....

[Sue U]

He was also helped by the fact that he skillfully cultivated the liberal mainstream reporters, many of whom continue to gush over him to this very day.

I call bullshit. Carter was viewed as a hard turn to the right for the party after a primary season in which Jerry Brown, Mo Udall and Hubert Humphrey were all in the running. And this was when Brown was dating Linda Ronstadt. So "liberal media gushing over Carter" is ridiculous.

His failure to get along with Congressional leaders of his own party wasn't due to a lack of political skills. It was due to his poor interpersonal skills, as well as his prickly personality and his tediously self-righteous and sanctimonious attitude...

While Carter did recognize and exploit the potential of the new primary election system adopted by the Democrats, he was a political outsider unloved by Washington power brokers, running against a slew of Senators. He came to D.C. with absolutely no base of power in Congress and no one beholden to his administrative agenda.

Also, what Big RR said above.

[Lord Jim]

I call bullshit.

Well, you can "call" bullshit all you want, it won't make you right...

Well I remember the huge press frenzy that began for Carter after he finished second behind "uncommitted" in Iowa, and it never let up...

Carter was seen as the best shot to take down George Wallace, (who had actually been leading in the polls with a plurality for the Demo nomination) and they greatly preferred him to the presumed front runner at the time, Scoop Jackson...( a genuine domestic issue moderate and JFK strong defense type)

He was perceived as the most electable liberal candidate, and the mainstream liberal press (perhaps not the lefty fringe press that I'm sure you preferred )) rallied to his side...

In an ideal world they might have preferred Udall, but after McGovern he wasn't seen as electable, Humphrey was two-time loser re-tread (having lost to Nixon in '68 and again to McGovern for the nomination in '72) and Jerry Brown didn't get in till almost the very end...

[Econoline]

This is a guy who has vented his spleen non-stop about his loss to Reagan for more than 35 years...

The most defining quality of Jimmy Carter is his bitterness...

In what alternate universe was that occurring?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter

Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Naval career
3 Farming
4 Early political career, 1963–71
4.1 Georgia State Senator (1963–67)
4.2 1966 and 1970 campaigns for governor
5 Governor of Georgia (1971–75)
5.1 National ambition
6 1976 presidential campaign
7 Presidency (1977–81)
7.1 Iran hostage crisis
7.2 U.S. energy crisis
7.3 EPA Love Canal Superfund
7.4 Deregulation
7.5 U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics
8 1980 presidential campaign
9 Post-presidency (1981–present)
9.1 Carter Center and Nobel Prize
9.2 Diplomacy
9.2.1 North Korea
9.2.2 Middle East
9.2.3 Africa
9.2.4 Americas
9.2.5 Vietnam
9.2.6 The Elders
9.3 Criticism of U.S. policy
9.3.1 Criticisms of George W. Bush
9.3.2 Criticisms of Barack Obama
9.4 Author
9.4.1 Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
9.5 Involvement with Bank of Credit and Commerce International
9.6 2012 Presidential race
9.7 Other activities
10 Personal views
10.1 Abortion
10.2 Death penalty
10.3 Equality for women
10.4 Gun control
10.5 Race in politics
10.6 Torture
11 Personal life
11.1 Religion
11.2 Family
11.3 Cancer diagnosis
11.4 Funeral and burial plans
12 Public image and legacy
12.1 Public opinion
12.2 Legacy
12.3 Honors and awards
13 Books

[Big RR]

Jim--I think Carter's biggest appeal was that he was an outsider in a time when people were sick of insiders (just a little after Watergate). Adding to that his strategy in the primaries (mentioned by Sue), I do recall a number of the party left opposing him (including Brown's late entry) and a mantra of "anyone but Carter". There was also a joke circulating at the time that said on any issue, Brown would be on the left. Jackson on the right, and Carter on both sides. He was seen, as a democrat from the south, however, as a good counter to Wallace, who was also mounting a primary challenge.

While he might appear left leaning today, he was quite moderate in many of his policies at the time, and was hardly embraced by the left. Indeed, it was the moderates who flocked to him, especially since Jackson was an insider (and a hawk who supported the Vietnam war (which was still fresh in the American psyche), was an ardent anti-communist, and opposed busing/integration), and Udall and Brown were too far to the left (they'd probably be to the left of Bernie today).

[wesw]

I m sure that mrs Reagan had many faults.

her Just Say No program was a joke, only effective at reinforcing the good behavior of well behaved and well supervised kids who were already church going, well guided youth.

just say no, and two eggs frying in a pan was useless.

perhaps if she had talked Ollie north out of bringing in planeloads of crack she would have been a hero, but she did not.

there is blame enough to go around concerning crack and its horrors , and president Reagan deserves his fair share.

but BSG, your lack of love and compassion for her is not her fault.

stop heroin, vote trump.

[Lord Jim]

perhaps if she had talked Ollie north out of bringing in planeloads of crack she would have been a hero,

Wes, you do realize that story (which originated in an article in The San Jose Mercury News, which they later re-tracted and apologized for) has been totally de-bunked, and has no more legitimacy than the story about the evil minions of the Bush Administration deliberately blowing up the levees in New Orleans...

[Big RR]

Well based on the official reports Jim, I guess that was true, but then the CIA did permit drug traffickers to remain on its non employee payroll so long as they helped the contras, and they were even legally able to avoid disclosing these conflicts of interest. Connecting the dots, and given the heavily redacted nature of the reports, I don't think it's that difficult to figure out what was actually done.

After all, if an organization would maintain offshore posts to allow people to be dragged off and tortured, sorry interrogated, do you really think they'd draw a line at importing drugs (especially since most of those buying/taking them were undesirables).

[Lord Jim]

The Sandinista regime was importing far more coke into the US then the Contras ever did...

Photos were produced showing Comandante Danny Ortega's brother, (at the time the Nicaraguan Justice Minister) personally overseeing the loading of cocaine on to planes bound for transport to the US...

[Big RR]

Fine, but that was not with CIA aid.

[Lord Jim]

Look, we dealt with a lot of unsavory characters during the Cold War, and certainly not just during the Reagan Administration...but in every Administration going back to Truman...

(to give but one example, in an article I've posted a couple of times, Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted in an interview in the late 90s that the Carter Administration was arming Islamists in Afghanistan before the Russians invaded, in the hopes of deliberately provoking an invasion)

In much the same way that we allied ourselves with a mass murdering paranoid sociopath thug like Joseph Stalin during WW II, against the greater threat of the time, Adolph Hitler....

Specifically regarding drug importation in to the US during the 1980s, did we occasionally "look the other way" when it was being conducted by those who were on our side in the interest of looking at the larger picture?

Yes we did...(Same thing with Noriega in Panama.. he gave us a lot of intel on drug smuggling from Panama...just to off his competitors...)

Is this a chapter in American history that covers us in glory?

Obviously not...

But that doesn't change the fact that the idea that the CIA was orchestrating some evil nefarious scheme to smuggle drugs into black neighborhoods for the purpose destroying African American communities is pure bollocks....

[Lord Jim]

Humphrey was a two-time loser re-tread (having lost to Nixon in '68 and again to McGovern for the nomination in '72)

I have a correction to make here...

Actually, Humphrey was a three time loser..

He also lost in a run for the nomination in 1960...

[Long Run]

Well he has a sports stadium dome named after him . . . wait, the roof collapsed and then they demolished it. Never mind.

[Lord Jim]

As Franklin Roosevelt correctly observed when talking about Anastasio the Elder...

"He may be a sonuvabitch, but he's our sonuvabitch..."

[Big RR]

But that doesn't change the fact that the idea that the CIA was orchestrating some evil nefarious scheme to smuggle drugs into black neighborhoods for the purpose destroying African American communities is pure bollocks....

No, but then who knows what might have been in the minds of some of the agents responsible for developing/implementing the policy?

I imagine people might have said the same thing about the PHS and the Tuskegee experiments.

[Lord Jim]

No, but then who knows what might have been in the minds of some of the agents responsible for developing/implementing the policy?

I think it's pretty clear what the motivation was...

This was the 80's...

The thinking undoubtedly was:

"People in this country are going to do coke, that's a given; the demand is going to feed the supply...

Given that fact, better we should look the other way when those who are on our side in waging the struggle against Soviet Imperialism, are using it to finance their efforts, then enabling those who are fighting against us in this global fight"...

In retrospect, with the benefit of "Monday morning quarterbacking", does that look like a really good moral basis for a policy?

Of course not...

But it's still a far cry away from, "The CIA was shipping drugs into the country to destroy black communities"...

[Big RR]

Maybe, and maybe some agents thought--and we get the bonus that we can rid the inner cities of some of the worst residents. Who knows? After all, wasn't there a war on drugs in the 80s?