Why do people call Reagan a Great President?

[Toro]

I thought Reagan was a pretty good President, though he did some dumb things. However, all in all, there was far more positive than negative.

The main thing Reagan did was make Americans feel good about themselves again. He told Americans that they should be proud to be Americans. After Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, and seeing foreigners burn their flag on TV every night, Reagan reminded Americans of why they were a great nation.

The fall of communism and the USSR can be partially attributed to Reagan. It wasn't only or even mainly because of Reagan why communism fell. However, he provided the political leadership to confront the Soviets.

Finally, he along with Margaret Thatcher - an even greater leader than Reagan - were the political symbols of a turn away from the inexorable increase in government involvement in the economy.

 

[AllieBaba]

Reagan was no Lincoln.

It doesn't matter. You guys would have hated Lincoln as well. As usual, you're missing the point. You don't see what's right in front of your eyes. You're too busy working an agenda.

 

[sky dancer]

I thought Reagan was a pretty good President, though he did some dumb things. However, all in all, there was far more positive than negative.

The main thing Reagan did was make Americans feel good about themselves again. He told Americans that they should be proud to be Americans. After Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, and seeing foreigners burn their flag on TV every night, Reagan reminded Americans of why they were a great nation.

The fall of communism and the USSR can be partially attributed to Reagan. It wasn't only or even mainly because of Reagan why communism fell. However, he provided the political leadership to confront the Soviets.

Finally, he along with Margaret Thatcher - an even greater leader than Reagan - were the political symbols of a turn away from the inexorable increase in government involvement in the economy.

What? The best thing he did was be a cheerleader? What American people did he make feel good about themselves? It wasn't the Native Americans.

 

[Truthmatters]

I thought Reagan was a pretty good President, though he did some dumb things. However, all in all, there was far more positive than negative.

The main thing Reagan did was make Americans feel good about themselves again. He told Americans that they should be proud to be Americans. After Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, and seeing foreigners burn their flag on TV every night, Reagan reminded Americans of why they were a great nation.

The fall of communism and the USSR can be partially attributed to Reagan. It wasn't only or even mainly because of Reagan why communism fell. However, he provided the political leadership to confront the Soviets.

Finally, he along with Margaret Thatcher - an even greater leader than Reagan - were the political symbols of a turn away from the inexorable increase in government involvement in the economy.

It was not the confrontation of the USSR that brought them down. The system was a failure plain and simple. Gorbachev is credited world round with the changing of Russia. Only American cons think it was Reagan and the rest of the world knows the reality.



the feel good thing is a myth too

First to go is the myth that Reagan was the most popular president since FDR. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting reminds us, “During the first two years of Reagan’s presidency, the public was giving President Reagan the lowest level of approval of all modern elected presidents. Reagan’s average first-year approval rating was 58 percent—lower than Dwight Eisenhower’s 69 percent, Jack Kennedy’s 75 percent, Richard Nixon’s 61 percent and Jimmy Carter’s 62 percent.” At the end of his second year, (remember the Reagan recession?) Reagan’s approval rating was 41 percent; after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed, Reagan’s approval rating stood at 46 percent. His approval rating for his entire presidency was lower than Kennedy’s, Eisenhower’s and even Johnson’s, and at times he was one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.

 

[Diuretic]

The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan -- In These Times


First to go is the myth that Reagan was the most popular president since FDR. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting reminds us, “During the first two years of Reagan’s presidency, the public was giving President Reagan the lowest level of approval of all modern elected presidents. Reagan’s average first-year approval rating was 58 percent—lower than Dwight Eisenhower’s 69 percent, Jack Kennedy’s 75 percent, Richard Nixon’s 61 percent and Jimmy Carter’s 62 percent.” At the end of his second year, (remember the Reagan recession?) Reagan’s approval rating was 41 percent; after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed, Reagan’s approval rating stood at 46 percent. His approval rating for his entire presidency was lower than Kennedy’s, Eisenhower’s and even Johnson’s, and at times he was one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.

Also forgotten is Reagan’s own embarrassing propensity to just make things up. Reagan was a dunce and a fabricator. One of his most famous assertions was, “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do,” and he maintained, wrongly, that sulfur dioxide emitted from Mount St. Helens was greater than that emitted by cars over a 10-year period. (In one day, cars emit 40 times what Mount St. Helens released in a day even at its peak activity.) In 1985, Reagan praised the P.W. Botha’s apartheid regime of South Africa for eliminating segregation, a blunder then-Press Secretary Larry Speakes had to correct a few days later.

The man was a liar and his "greatness" is a myth.

I remember a cartoon featuring Reagan in front with that dopey look he had and behind him a tree with a sign on it, "Stop me before I kill again!"

 

[sky dancer]

It doesn't matter. You guys would have hated Lincoln as well. As usual, you're missing the point. You don't see what's right in front of your eyes. You're too busy working an agenda.

The only 'agenda' I have is to discuss the topic.

Lincoln is one of my favorite Presidents of all time. Telling me I would have hated Lincoln is a weak argument in favor of Reagan. In fact, Lincoln and Reagan have little in common.

 

[Truthmatters]

I remember a cartoon featuring Reagan in front with that dopey look he had and behind him a tree with a sign on it, "Stop me before I kill again!"

Hey man , merry season and all that rot.


He was a liar and the republican party has repeted the bullshit over and over that he was the loved one. Now people who were little a the time think is was true.

 

[sky dancer]

"The characterization of Reagan as a kindly grandfather figure ran counter to the experience of most school-age children, since he blocked bussing programs, slashed Head Start, cut school lunch programs and tried to pawn ketchup as a viable vegetable. He replaced vocational schools with prisons, and he offered no financial assistance to college students in need of it.

His disdain for African Americans was unabashed, constant, and exhibited in numerous ways. During his reign, African Americans saw the systematic erosion of hard-won civil rights gains and helped re-segregate the U.S. Reagan launched his presidential bid by speaking about “states’ rights” and upholding the voice of Southern segregationists at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi. One of the grimmest episodes in the Civil Rights Movement occurred in that county in 1964. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney — three civil rights workers — were slain by the Ku Klux Klan during “Freedom Summer” while volunteering to register black voters.

To an all-white audience in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a notorious enclave for the Ku Klux Klan, Reagan proudly proclaimed Jefferson Davis as one of his heroes. Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was an anti-abolitionist, and the only president (Thank God!) of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. "
Reverend Irene Monroe » Blog Archive » Remembering Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire

 

[Truthmatters]

Other examples abound: During a 1983 Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony Reagan told a story about military heroism that New York Daily News columnist Lars-Erik Nelson wrote never happened. Nelson had checked the citations on all 434 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during WWII. The scene Reagan described did appear, however, in the 1944 film A Wing and a Prayer. Larry Speakes’ response? “If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.”

 

[AllieBaba]

The only 'agenda' I have is to discuss the topic.

Lincoln is one of my favorite Presidents of all time. Telling me I would have hated Lincoln is a weak argument in favor of Reagan. In fact, Lincoln and Reagan have little in common.

They were Republicans.
They believed in the freedom of CHristians to worship as they choose, openly if they desire.
They were willing to go to war on principle.

 

[Truthmatters]

In 1982, the Congressional Budget Office found that taxpayers earning under $10,000 lost an average of $240 from Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, while those earning more than $80,000 gained an average of $15,130. By that fall, the jobless rate hit 10.1 percent—the worst in 42 years, and a year later 11.9 million were out of work. In 1983, the country’s poverty rate rose to 15 percent, the highest level since the mid-’60s. In 1984, a congressional study reported that cuts in welfare had pushed more than 500,000 people—the majority of them children—into poverty.

 

[AllieBaba]

Gosh, that explains the huge economic boom of the 80s, then.

 

[Truthmatters]

Gosh, that explains the huge economic boom of the 80s, then.

Facts are facts my friend.


Give some eveidence

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan -- In These Times

ROFLMNAO... so this turd rolls out radical leftist propaganda in support OF radical leftist propaganda... Hilarious.

First to go is the myth that Reagan was the most popular president since FDR. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting reminds us, “During the first two years of Reagan’s presidency, the public was giving President Reagan the lowest level of approval of all modern elected presidents. Reagan’s average first-year approval rating was 58 percent—lower than Dwight Eisenhower’s 69 percent, Jack Kennedy’s 75 percent, Richard Nixon’s 61 percent and Jimmy Carter’s 62 percent.” At the end of his second year, (remember the Reagan recession?) Reagan’s approval rating was 41 percent; after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed, Reagan’s approval rating stood at 46 percent. His approval rating for his entire presidency was lower than Kennedy’s, Eisenhower’s and even Johnson’s, and at times he was one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.

LOL.. Oh GOD, now that's precious... Iran-Contra was a leftist fabrication... this was where the left subverted US security by trying to make it illegal for the US executive to curtail the expansion of communism in the western hemisphere... Reagan successfully circumnavigated that subversion and is an American hero for having done so... Secondly, the myth that Reagan traded 'arms for hostages' was a good move... No problem there... that the left made such a big deal out of it only proves that it was the right thing to do...

That Reagan was able to maintain a 41 job approval in the midst of a MASSIVE anti-Reagan, anti-American, leftist media blitz is incredible... and it goes to prove the power that was Ronaldus Magnus.

Also forgotten is Reagan’s own embarrassing propensity to just make things up.

LMAO This is a wonderful farce that only the most desperate anti-American losers trot out. It has absolutely no basis in fact and the instant one tries to get one of these turds to support it the conversation dries up...

Reagan was a dunce and a fabricator.

This is a classic example in evidence of the above fact... note that in support of their baseless assertion comes nothing but another baseless assertion.

One of his most famous assertions was, “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do,” and he maintained, wrongly, that sulfur dioxide emitted from Mount St. Helens was greater than that emitted by cars over a 10-year period.

Never happened... at least not as presented. Reagan's comments were in direct response to assertions by enviro-fruits and they were factual... Mt. St. Helens and other volcanic activity DO in fact did spew more POLUTION in terms of solid particulates and carbon emissions than do automobiles... it’s not even close. What's more Reagan didn't make anything up, his comments were a result of scientific reports he had read and all the braying by these asses will not change the simple fact they what they advance as long ago paid to rest science is NOT by any means laid to rest and their chicken little hysteria is little more than just that.

(In one day, cars emit 40 times what Mount St. Helens released in a day even at its peak activity.)

Absurd nonsense... and again this rhetorical pencil neck is limiting her 'analysis' to ONE would be pollutant...

In 1985, Reagan praised the P.W. Botha’s apartheid regime of South Africa for eliminating segregation, a blunder then-Press Secretary Larry Speakes had to correct a few days later.

What a rhetorical faux pas? Well SHAME on RWR... imagine a human being saying something which he had to correct... Let the record reflect that Reagan's press secretary corrected ONLY what President Reagan wanted corrected. This dumbass wants to imply that the Pres sec was forced to correct President Reagan's point outside of the President's wishes. It didn't happen.

The man was a liar and his "greatness" is a myth.

A position which rests in the absence of a scintilla of evidence that President Reagan is known to have uttered a single lie. Which is a lie in and of itself... now isn't it?

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Facts are facts my friend.


Give some eveidence

As lies are lies... The Congressional budget office found no such thing... you're a lying sack of shit.

 

[sky dancer]

Reagan catered to the rich in his policies and the racist and stupid in his 'folksy' values con.

"The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/11/14/6325/

 

[AllieBaba]

I love it. People who don't have a Massachusetts drawl or speak like they're from New York or LA are "stupid".

Let's talk about bigotry, shall we? People who talk folksy are stupid?

 

[Chris]

"It [a list of Reagan's lies] was included in the September 2003 Washington Monthly, which printed a few of Reagan's doozies: His 1980 statement that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," his claim that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit assigned to film Nazi death camps (he never left Hollywood), and his claim in 1986 that "we did not, repeat, did not, trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we."

But the whopper that became legend, and was used to usher in welfare policy changes, is the story of the "welfare queen" living a life of lavish leisure while collecting welfare.

Reagan frequently told a version of the story in speeches, beginning in 1976, of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexisting husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000."

Suddenly, the enduring image of a person on welfare became a black woman in a mink coat driving a Cadillac to pick up her welfare checks.

The real "Chicago welfare queen" used two aliases to collect $8,000 and didn't get away with it."

"The media tried to debunk it [Reagan's "welfare queen" lie], but it had mutated into common knowledge by the time a newspaper reporter, David Zucchino, of the Philadelphia Inquirer, spent a year with two welfare mothers in that city. The result in 1996 was a highly praised book, "The Myth of the Welfare Queen."

Balance - New England: Reagan's Lies Will Live On, Too

 

[Truthmatters]

POLL SHOWS REAGAN APPROVAL RATING AT 4-YEAR LOW - New York Times

 

[sky dancer]

"Facts are stupid things."

Ronald Reagan
40th president of US (1911 - 2004)