Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres

Subject: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 05:19 PM

Ronald Reagan was 93 when he died. In an obituary, perhaps one should start by saying something kind. He was tall and he had good hair. As an actor I didn't care for his style and as a president from day one he was despised by many (his first act--freeze federal employeee hiring--as a federal employee, I was directly impacted by his acting on his rhetoric). He twitched around federal health benefits to suit his own political positions (no abortions were paid for on his watch), and he allowed carpetbaggers to raid the federal savings and loans, along with many other atrocities.

Let's hope the silly nostalgic conservative knee-jerk responses to his death are short-lived and don't give Dubya any kind of bounce for his equally destructive policies.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Raptor
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 05:39 PM

Goodnight Bonzo

Raptor

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: kendall
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 06:28 PM

Well meaning incompetent

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 06:53 PM

Bad actor, worse president. But then we had no idea how bad it could get.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Cruiser
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 07:39 PM

Reagan was a very decent, kind, nice fool. He paved the way for another fool, our current president, to believe he could become president. I voted for both of them. I guess that makes me somewhat of a naïve fool believing that religious, good people are more likely to less harm to the natural world and the human race.

I just watched Mr. Bush give a eulogy of Reagan. I really think Bush sees himself as he thought of Reagan; a great president.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Cruiser
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 08:40 PM

From AP:

President Bush mourned Ronald Reagan on Saturday as a great American who "leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save."

Bush said Reagan "had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom."

Bush said that during the years of Reagan's presidency, the nation "laid to rest an era of division and self-doubt and because of his leadership the world laid to rest an era of fear and tyranny."

Bush walked somberly down an arcing staircase into a sitting room and assumed his position behind a lectern with the presidential seal. He blinked back tears as he said this line: "He always told us for America the best is yet to come.

"We comfort ourselves in the knowledge that this is true for him too," Bush said. "His work is done. And now a shining city awaits him."

I am sure Reagan is up yonder saying down to Bush:

"Go out there and win one for the gipper"

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: freightdawg
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 08:57 PM

Ronald Reagan entered the White House and won re-election with two smashing victories. We may never again see the kind of overwhelming support for any candidate again, at least not in the near future.

Compared to the abysmal depression of Jimmy Carter, his "morning in America" was a welcome and optimistic view of our country.

He worked with a congress that was clearly in the Democratic stronghold, and yet won a begrudging admiration from friend and foe alike. It is said that he and Tip O'Neill would meet together and share a drink and some jokes. They were perhaps the last two great statesmen - loyal to their positions yet willing to share civility and to respect each other.

Reagan shocked his advisors and everyone else when he went off on long walks with Gorbachev during their summits. Yet it was Reagan who prevailed when the Wall came crashing down.

Yes, he had some policies that not everyone liked. I doubt you will find an old air traffic controller that is very sad today. But, like it or not, it was Reagan's policies that ultimately gave Clinton the economic leverage to do what he wanted with his policies.

No recent (since Kennedy) president will be missed by more people and for more reasons than Ronald Reagan. Nit pick his decisions if you wish, but you cannot argue with the man's astute ability to create the morning in America that he envisioned.

Very likely he will be the last president in my lifetime who actually honored the position.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Padre
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 09:12 PM

Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him.

Padre+

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 09:46 PM

Regardless of anyone's personal feelings for the man, and there are very few people who are neutral, his last few years must have been a true hell for him and his family, and he very likely welcomed his death (if he was aware at all). Baruch ha shem.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 10:08 PM

One of the puzzlements I felt during his presidency was when he - and his cohorts - extolled the "good times" we were experiencing under his reign. My question was: "If times are so good, why aren't we paying our bills? Do we wait until times are bad?"

I consider Reagan the president who set the tone and direction that we're traveling today.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: harpmaker
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 11:29 PM

el ted on joh'ns computer
                     go on then, you mealy mouthed mudcat liberals make a difference, you can't can you?

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 11:58 PM

Dictionary

Mealy mouthed: Not brave enough to say what you mean directly and honestly"

harpmaker, which one of us is NOT saying 'directly and honestly' what we mean?

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 01:06 AM

the dark and perverse irony is that without Reagan's support, Gorbachev wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell and if it hadn't been for Nixon there probably wouldn't have been a significant change in China and their trading relationship and subsequent diplomacy with the west.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 02:19 AM

I don't despise him just because he was a bad actor or because he was a republican. There are a lot of republicans I like and respect. But not this one.

Reagan cured the savings and loans of having excess cash. He conceived Iran-Contral but with his teflon coating had Ollie North and others (who were plenty guilty) take the heat. He fired the air traffic controllers rather than attend to the systemic problems that were contributing to major airline safety problems. His rich friends got even richer. Everyone else got shit in his Reaganomics trickle-down theory (someone said once that in England it is referred to as a horse/sparrow theory--the horse gets the oats and the sparrow picks at the droppings). They lived high on the hog there in Washington, D.C. when the Reagans were in office, yet had the nerve to tell school children that ketchup was a vegetable in their school lunches.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 02:48 AM

Ronald Reagan dead?
How could they tell?

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: emjay
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 03:03 AM

More low income housing was built during Jimmy Carter's one term than in 8 years of REagan's as well as the first four of Bush senior. I don't know figures since then, but I doubt much more has been built since then, though Carter continues to do it.
I was reading recently (was it in another Mudcat thread?)that Reagan's oft repeated "...tear down that wall" might have hastened the end of the cold war by ten days.
Reagan cut government funding for abortions, but after the onset of his Alzheimers, Nancy R. favored stem-cell research.
I wouldn't wish the terrible and difficult disease on anyone nor on anyones family, but I am not looking forward to the endless praise of the man we are not going to be subjected to. I am sure the end is a blessing for all involved.
And I always thought naming an airport for him was a cruel irony.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 04:35 AM

Why has el ted turned into an apologist for a ham actor and a worse president?

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 11:06 AM

"...you cannot argue with the man's astute ability to create the morning in America that he envisioned."

You can't argue with the fact that "morning in America" was an excellent sales job for a product that failed to live up to it's hype.

Others have noted the negatives about the Reagan presidency, and I have yet to read anything positive to have come from it. The idea that Reagan could be credited with ending the Cold War is idiotic. His presidency represents the worst of what our politics have become: sales jobs to a gullible voting public that will vote for whomever makes them "feel good about themselves".

The one and only thing the Reagan presidency will be known for is breaking the Democratic Party's decades long stranglehold on politics, by using the power of television advertising to sell the US voter a shoddy product: the Reagan Revolution.

We are living with the legacy of his regime, to be sure, as most of the bureaucrats who served in his administration are now in power again. Clinton was a Reagan Democrat. There is no sign that the Reagan Revolution has lost it's iron grip on political power in the US. The Republicans are bankrupting the nation, halted the process of much-needed medical research over their bizarre obsession with and development of a cult of the fetus, destroyed the American dream for the majority of US families, and have wasted their foreign policy clout being arrogant and domineering bullies on the world stage.

That is some legacy, all right.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 12:24 PM

I thought Reagan did a really good job as host of the "Death Valley Days" television program. Too bad the Twenty-Mule-Team Borax folks didn't pay him enough money to keep him from mucking around in politics.

But, overall, my attitude toward Mr. Reagan is largely neutral. I actually didn't dislike him as President as much as I had thought I would. However, that oversight is being more than made up for by the current resident of the Whitehouse whom I thoroughly despise.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Amergin
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 01:58 PM

his death is 23 years too late...

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 01:59 PM

Reagan's legacy.

This is what I'm currently reading. Check the cover, then scroll down for the review.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 02:36 PM

Don,

When you finish the book, how about writing a customer review on the Amazon site and a synopsis here at Mudcat?

Most of us here are painfully aware of the plutocratic administrations of Reagan and Bush, however more insight into the
relationships of those administrations is important.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 02:57 PM

In a sidenote: In that cover photo, Reagan may be standing on a raised platform- he looks so much taller than Bush. I checked in Jeeves and it said that Reagan was 6'1" and the bush is 5'11". (Which may translate to 5'9 1/2", of course.)

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 05:59 PM

There lies a fake, a phony and a fraud.

He certainly wasn't my idea of presidential. He was the first of a long line of puppets that projected an image that America wanted to believe. No integrity, no ability, nothing more than a stand-in for the real power mongers. One of those insipid social climbers who did it for the money.

Didn't he finger alot of people in Hollywood during the McCarthy era?

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 06:07 PM

Reagan was neither decent nor kind. But he was certainly a fool.

Yet more disgusting and demoralizing than the incredible harm this man and his cronies did are the legions of people who still, persist in making excuses for him. He was a miserable piece of work, and his life diminished thousands- possibly millions by now.

And yes, as president of the Screen Actors' Guild dear old slimy Ronnie shopped all sorts of folks to McCarthy to further his career.

Good riddance to the smiling, lying miserable S.O.B. The world is a better and a sweeter place without him.

With any amount of luck Lady Maggie, Kissinger and a few others will follow him to Hell in short order.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: GUEST,Men's height
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 06:09 PM

Every man wants to be 6' tall even if they are only 5'10". Even very honest men will exaggerate their height. Look at football players. Some of the shorties are often listed on the program at near 6' (5'11 1/2"), even when it is obvious they are only of average height.

Other body parts are also often exaggerated..that is why most women have poor judgement when it comes to measurements, especially in inches.

To get back to the subject mentioned, Bush is a banty rooster but he finally now stands taller than Reagan for the first time.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 06:23 PM

Oh, GUEST: That just isn't so. I am 5'9" and if this is an inch, ---, then quite handsomely proportioned. Stop with the trade secrets, already.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: GUEST,Rolloff De Bunk
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:38 PM

Glad to hear that there are actually thinking Americans out there. Loved the Reaganomics association with the horse and sparrow! Too true! The current adoration will soon be over but the thinking people of the mighty USA will remember him as a puppet of the armed paranoids that this country is ruled by.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 03:46 AM

His friends and loved ones are genuinely unhappy at his death, and the circumstances surrounding it. They tell some good stories about him, and have obviously heard the other not-so-nice stories about his political life and acts. I mowed the lawn this evening when the funeral was on, but came in for a drink of water when Ron Reagan was telling a story about Reagan's "thumbs up" sign. When confronted with someone (with a fearsome visage, according to the younger Reagan) who flipped the family the bird as they passed by in their limo, Ronald senior quipped that his thumb's up signal was catching on. I do believe this story was told to try to embarrass those folks who disliked Reagan and made outward shows or remarks of their displeasure with the former president. The pro-Reagan folks clearly have the spotlight this week, but at the same time, are probably trying to preserve good manners by not flipping the bird back at the nay-sayers. This was one attempt to do so.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: The Walrus
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 12:15 PM

I noticed that when they bought his corpse to Washington, it was accompanied by a riderless charger with sabre and boots reversed - the traditional of a dead military commander.
Did Mr Reagan ever earn this mark in his own right 'in the field' or was rhis merely an allusion to his nominal role as C in C as President?

Walrus

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 12:59 PM

Virtual reality?

I noticed their pastor in CA is a South African - No wonder Mr Paisley's facist ethnic cleasing was so brazen ( N Ireland 80's) when the US was under the finger of an orangeman. Ronnie OC could never have guessed he was a toytaidg!

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 02:21 PM

Ronnie Raygun fought valiantly in WW II - on the silver screen.

Nowhere else.

He was an adept at virtual reality- before his time, really.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: brid widder
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 06:32 PM

My dad used to say he was a 'small part actor trying to play the lead'... a wise man my dad

Subject: RE: Obit: Ronald Reagan, actor, pres
From: harpmaker
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:45 PM

hellow, hellow. hellow, I see el ted has been posting from my comp' again.
I will log off my cookie next time he comes.