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Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?
There's been talk that George W. Bush was so inept that he should trademark the phrase "Worst President Ever," though some historians would bestow that title on pre-Civil War President James Buchanan. Still, a case could be made for putting Ronald Reagan in the competition.
Granted, the very idea of rating Reagan as one of the worst presidents ever will infuriate his many right-wing acolytes and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.
But there's a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan's presidency. There's also a grudging reassessment that the "failed" presidents of the 1970s - Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter - may deserve more credit for trying to grapple with the problems that now beset the country.
Nixon, Ford and Carter won scant praise for addressing the systemic challenges of America's oil dependence, environmental degradation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation - all issues that Reagan essentially ignored and that now threaten America's future.
Nixon helped create the Environmental Protection Agency; he imposed energy-conservation measures; he opened the diplomatic door to communist China. Nixon's administration also detected the growing weakness in the Soviet Union and advocated a policy of détente (a plan for bringing the Cold War to an end or at least curbing its most dangerous excesses).
After Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal, Ford continued many of Nixon's policies, particularly trying to wind down the Cold War with Moscow. However, confronting a rebellion from Reagan's Republican Right in 1976, Ford abandoned "détente."
Ford also let hard-line Cold Warriors (and a first wave of young intellectuals who became known as neoconservatives) pressure the CIA's analytical division, and he brought in a new generation of hard-liners, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
After defeating Ford in 1976, Carter injected more respect for human rights into U.S. foreign policy, a move some scholars believe put an important nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union, leaving it hard-pressed to justify the repressive internal practices of the East Bloc. Carter also emphasized the need to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, especially in unstable countries like Pakistan.
Domestically, Carter pushed a comprehensive energy policy and warned Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a national security threat, what he famously called "the moral equivalent of war."
However, powerful vested interests - both domestic and foreign - managed to exploit the shortcomings of these three presidents to sabotage any sustained progress. By 1980, Reagan had become a pied piper luring the American people away from the tough choices that Nixon, Ford and Carter had defined.
Cruelty with a Smile
With his superficially sunny disposition - and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments - Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.
In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
When it came to cutting back on America's energy use, Reagan's message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, "Don't worry, be happy." Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.
The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn't invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.
Reagan pushed for deregulation of industries, including banking; he slashed income taxes for the wealthiest Americans in an experiment known as "supply side" economics, which held falsely that cutting rates for the rich would increase revenues and eliminate the federal deficit.
Over the years, "supply side" would evolve into a secular religion for many on the Right, but Reagan's budget director David Stockman once blurted out the truth, that it would lead to red ink "as far as the eye could see."
While conceding that some of Reagan's economic plans did not work out as intended, his defenders - including many mainstream journalists - still argue that Reagan should be hailed as a great President because he "won the Cold War," a short-hand phrase that they like to attach to his historical biography.
However, a strong case can be made that the Cold War was won well before Reagan arrived in the White House. Indeed, in the 1970s, it was a common perception in the U.S. intelligence community that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was winding down, in large part because the Soviet economic model had failed in the technological race with the West.
That was the view of many Kremlinologists in the CIA's analytical division. Also, I was told by a senior CIA's operations official that some of the CIA's best spies inside the Soviet hierarchy supported the view that the Soviet Union was headed toward collapse, not surging toward world supremacy, as Reagan and his foreign policy team insisted in the early 1980s.
The CIA analysis was the basis for the détente that was launched by Nixon and Ford, essentially seeking a negotiated solution to the most dangerous remaining aspects of the Cold War.
The Afghan Debacle
In that view, Soviet military operations, including sending troops into Afghanistan in 1979, were mostly defensive in nature. In Afghanistan, the Soviets hoped to prop up a pro-communist government that was seeking to modernize the country but was beset by opposition from Islamic fundamentalists who were getting covert support from the U.S. government.
Though the Afghan covert operation originated with Cold Warriors in the Carter administration, especially national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the war was dramatically ramped up under Reagan, who traded U.S. acquiescence toward Pakistan's nuclear bomb for its help in shipping sophisticated weapons to the Afghan jihadists (including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden).
While Reagan's acolytes cite the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as decisive in "winning the Cold War," the counter-argument is that Moscow was already in disarray - and while failure in Afghanistan may have sped the Soviet Union's final collapse - it also created twin dangers for the future of the world: the rise of al-Qaeda terrorism and the nuclear bomb in the hands of Pakistan's unstable Islamic Republic.
Trade-offs elsewhere in the world also damaged long-term U.S. interests. In Latin America, for instance, Reagan's brutal strategy of arming right-wing militaries to crush peasant, student and labor uprisings left the region with a legacy of anti-Americanism that is now resurfacing in the emergence of populist leftist governments.
In Nicaragua, for instance, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega (whom Reagan once denounced as a "dictator in designer glasses") is now back in power. In El Salvador, the leftist FMLN won the latest elections. Indeed, across the region, hostility to Washington is now the rule, creating openings for China, Iran, Cuba and other American rivals.
In the early 1980s, Reagan also credentialed a young generation of neocon intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called "perception management," the shaping of how Americans saw, understood and were frightened by threats from abroad.
Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, U.S. intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the propaganda demands from above.
To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward anyone who challenged the era's feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or - in Jeane Kirkpatrick's memorable attack line - they would "blame America first."
Under Reagan, a right-wing infrastructure also took shape, linking media outlets (magazines, newspapers, books, etc.) with well-financed think tanks that churned out endless op-eds and research papers. Plus, there were attack groups that went after mainstream journalists who dared disclose information that poked holes in Reagan's propaganda themes.
In effect, Reagan's team created a faux reality for the American public. Civil wars in Central America between impoverished peasants and wealthy oligarchs became East-West showdowns. U.S.-backed insurgents in Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan were transformed from corrupt, brutal (often drug-tainted) thugs into noble "freedom-fighters."
With the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan also revived Richard Nixon's theory of an imperial presidency that could ignore the nation's laws and evade accountability through criminal cover-ups. That behavior also would rear its head again in the war crimes of George W. Bush. [For details on Reagan's abuses, see Robert Parry's Lost History and Secrecy & Privilege.]
Wall Street Greed
The American Dream also dimmed during Reagan's tenure.
While he played the role of the nation's kindly grandfather, his operatives divided the American people, using "wedge issues" to deepen grievances especially of white men who were encouraged to see themselves as victims of "reverse discrimination" and "political correctness."
Yet even as working-class white men were rallying to the Republican banner (as so-called "Reagan Democrats"), their economic interests were being savaged. Unions were broken and marginalized; "free trade" policies shipped manufacturing jobs abroad; old neighborhoods were decaying; drug use among the young was soaring.
Meanwhile, unprecedented greed was unleashed on Wall Street, fraying old-fashioned bonds between company owners and employees.
Before Reagan, corporate CEOs earned less than 50 times the salary of an average worker. By the end of the Reagan-Bush-I administrations in 1993, the average CEO salary was more than 100 times that of a typical worker. (At the end of the Bush-II administration, that CEO-salary figure was more than 250 times that of an average worker.)
Many other trends set during the Reagan era continued to corrode the U.S. political process in the years after Reagan left office. After 9/11, for instance, the neocons reemerged as a dominant force, reprising their "perception management" tactics, depicting the "war on terror" - like the last days of the Cold War - as a terrifying conflict between good and evil.
The hyping of the Islamic threat mirrored the neocons' exaggerated depiction of the Soviet menace in the 1980s - and again the propaganda strategy worked. Many Americans let their emotions run wild, from the hunger for revenge after 9/11 to the war fever over invading Iraq.
Arguably, the descent into this dark fantasyland - that Ronald Reagan began in the early 1980s - reached its nadir in the flag-waving early days of the Iraq War. Only gradually did reality begin to reassert itself as the death toll mounted in Iraq and the Katrina disaster reminded Americans why they needed an effective government.
Still, the disasters - set in motion by Ronald Reagan - continued to roll in. Bush's Reagan-esque tax cuts for the rich blew another huge hole in the federal budget and the Reagan-esque anti-regulatory fervor led to a massive financial meltdown that threw the nation into economic chaos.
Love Reagan; Hate Bush
Ironically, George W. Bush has come in for savage criticism, but the Republican leader who inspired Bush's presidency - Ronald Reagan - remained an honored figure, his name attached to scores of national landmarks including Washington's National Airport.
Even leading Democrats genuflect to Reagan. Early in Campaign 2008, when Barack Obama was positioning himself as a bipartisan political figure who could appeal to Republicans, he bowed to the Reagan mystique, hailing the GOP icon as a leader who "changed the trajectory of America."
Though Obama's chief point was that Reagan in 1980 "put us on a fundamentally different path" - a point which may be historically undeniable - Obama went further, justifying Reagan's course correction because of "all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn't much sense of accountability."
While Obama later clarified his point to say he didn't mean to endorse Reagan's conservative policies, Obama seemed to suggest that Reagan's 1980 election administered a needed dose of accountability to the United States when Reagan actually did the opposite. Reagan's presidency represented a dangerous escape from accountability - and reality.
Still, Obama and congressional Democrats continue to pander to the Reagan myth. On Tuesday, as the nation approached the fifth anniversary of Reagan's death, Obama welcomed Nancy Reagan to the White House and signed a law creating a panel to plan and carry out events to honor Reagan's 100th birthday in 2011.
Obama hailed the right-wing icon. "President Reagan helped as much as any President to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics - that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day," Obama said. [For more on Obama's earlier pandering about Reagan, see Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's Dubious Praise for Reagan."]
It's a sure thing that the Reagan Centennial Committee won't do much more than add to the hagiography surrounding the 40th President.
Despite the grievous harm that Reagan's presidency inflicted on the American Republic and the American people, it may take many more years before a historian has the guts to put this deformed era into a truthful perspective and rate Reagan where he belongs -- near the bottom of the presidential list.
- Posted in
60 Comments so far
Show AllReagan also massively ignored the AIDS epidemic for years, allowing it to reach epidemic proportions and devastate a generation of gay men. It was not until 1986 - five years after the first recognized cases of the disease - that Reagan made a public statement about AIDS. In that statement he mentioned every risk-group except for gay men; about gay men he was silent. The Republicans in Reagan's time routinely tried to block funds for AIDS research, safe-sex education, and care for People with AIDS. Reagan was an extreme homophobe, capable of extraordinary coldness, malevolence, and cruelty.
Much as I appreciate Robert Parry's article, I am disturbed that he did not give any mention to Reagan's criminal role in the AIDS epidemic. I'm afraid that Parry too may be guilty of devaluing the lives of gay men. Homophobia (in the form of considering gay issues and gay lives unimportant) is very common among progressives.
"Homophobia (in the form of considering gay issues and gay lives unimportant) is very common among progressives."
The fact that the issues most important to you were not addressed in this article does not justify your venomous slander of an entire group of people.
As far as Reagan is concerned, he was no more homophobic than Nixon or either of the Bushes. In other words, hating gays did not make him unique among presidents.
I guess that Bill Clinton's sins are OK with you because he was sympathetic toward gays.
The despicable lie in your second paragraph turns your legitimate complaint into a pathetic whine.
Grow up.
q
Hating gays did not make Reagan unique among Republicans, not presidents. Your despicable whitewashing of the issue turns your would-be criticism into a pathetic projection.
Is this post supposed to make sense?
q
To - quickstepper:
I find your post difficult to respond to, but I will try.
I may be wrong in my perceptions of homophobia in the progressive community. It has certainly been my observation over the last several years that gay and lesbian issues are not given a high priority among progressives - not as high as the human rights & dignity of other oppressed groups. I'm okay with people disagreeing with me about that - I would be glad to be proven wrong!
It may or may not be true that Reagan was "more homophobic than Nixon or either of the Bushes," but I think that, because his presidency coincided with those first desperate years of the AIDS epidemic, he was in a position to do us greater damage. And no, Bill Clinton's "sins" are not "okay with me." But I do think he was a better president than Reagan. In any case, the article we are posting in response to was about the disastrous policies of the Reagan administration, and I think his handling of the AIDS epidemic was, in fact, a catastrophe.
I can't agree with you that my post constitutes a "pathetic whine." In fact it strikes me as homophobic to characterize criticisms of Reagan's anti-gay AIDS policies as a "pathetic whine," even if you disagree with my assessment of homophobia among progressives. I think the issues involved were/are of great importance. It is not "whining" nor is it "pathetic" to defend the value of the lives of gay men.
I'll never forget the extremities of despair and desperation in my community during those years, all the beautiful men I knew who suffered so much and died so very young. I'm proud of the compassion gay men showed for each other and the amazing way the gay community organized to take care of its own. And I'm proud of the powerful & creative political activism of those years, most vividly exemplified by ACT UP.
And I don't think Reagan's homophobia should be forgotten.
It is both whining and pathetic to label a group of people as homophobic because they do not prioritize issues in the same way that you do. "Homophobic" is a very strong word that connotes both fear and hatred toward gays.
As a Progressive with many gay associates and co-workers, I object to your slander.
You are worse than the zionist bigots who claim that any criticism of Israel constitutes anti-Semitism.
q
I find the intensity of your condemnation of me very curious. I do, quite honestly, believe that, in general, the progressive community in the U.S. approaches issues of gay and lesbian rights - both national and international - as being of small importance. The situation has changed a little bit (for the better) since Proposition 8 was passed in California last November. I haven't meant to "vilify an entire group of people," but rather to raise this as an issue to be discussed among progressives. I don't think that constitutes "pathetic whining" - I think that the progressive community can be helped and even improved by open debate and self-critical reflection.
I call the attitude of the left "homophobia" because I think it proceeds from an attitude that our oppression doesn't matter as much as the oppression of other groups - i.e. that we are of lesser importance than others. That is what homophobia is - prejudice, whether powerful or subtle, against gay men and lesbians, a diminishment of our humanity. I recognize that what I am talking about is not as intense or thorough-going as the homophobia of, to choose an extreme example, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (the "god hates fags" people). I do, however, think that the left (internationally) has a long history of being at best unreliable in its support of gay and lesbian rights.
It may be that I am wrong. I haven't conducted scientific research on the issue. I am speaking simply as a reasonably well-informed progressive activist, one who cares a lot about LGBT rights (and many other issues), works with progressive organizations in my hometown, keeps up with the news daily, and reads a lot of alternative media.
I cannot accept your characterization of me as "worse than the zionist bigots who claim that any criticism of Israel constitutes anti-Semitism." And I reject your contention that my concerns constitute "pathetic whining." You could disagree with me without using such furiously insulting language.
Clinton: DOMA, DADT.
Furthermore, in 2009, Clinton still opposes gay / lesbian marriage.
The cult of Saint Reagan must be debunked as quickly as possible. It would be a giant step toward heading off complete economic collapse of the US.
Maybe he was the worst president in history, maybe not, but no president demonstrated the sociopathic qualities of glittering like a diamond while at the same time consigning millions to poverty, racial hatred, and the horrors of war.
He set a precedent of transferring the powers of the judicial and legislative branches of government to the executive branch which has been growing exponentially ever since.
He is gone but, sadly and tragically, not forgotten.
the first time bubbles - er i mean reagan, henceforth refereed to as bubbles - said the word aids in public was at a speech organized by his friend liz taylor
he used the speech though to announce that the us would start new immigration initiatives that would ban people with aids from entering the country
we was roundly booed off the stage and the audience turned their backs on him even as he spoke
bubbles was the ignoramus who would say all the hateful things that the gop were feeling and they loved him for it - not unlike the nutbar palin today
jimmy carter tells the story that when he met with reagan to go over the missile launch protocols with bubbles he noticed that bubbles was drifting off - he asked him if he was ok and bubbles said basically he wasn't interested in that shit at all
he would have someone else launch if it came to that
bubbles regularly fell asleep at cabinet meetings - guess he wasn't interested in that shit either
his world view was equal to that of a 5 year old
lastly, in addition to all the stuff mentioned in today's article, he was senile and suffering from alzheimer's related dementia while in office
yeh, i'd say he is a good candidate for worst ever
reagan has snatched the one title that the alcoholic bush baby had a legitimate shot at - worst president ever
bush baby comes in second - even though he was an utter failure at everything in life he touched - but apparently he has been good enough to make himself available for official worst ever functions should reagan not be able to do it himself
I would say he was the worst because he legitimized personal greed and cast deep suspicions on community service. He broke a dam, and through that dam came Norquist, Gingrich, and a host of others who saw anyone working for the gov't as a 'hanger-on', while anyone working for his own personal profit was seen as a real American, growing the economy.
Mona Charen wrote a book: "Do Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those they Claim to Help" that epitomises the Reagan Age for me. Ya see, in the Reagan Age, doing GOOD is actually BAD. And by the way, up is down and black is white, too.
It may sound naive, but to me, to be a Do Gooder is as the title suggests, and when you try to Do Good you generally achieve what you sought. The GOP has, for 30 years been trying to convince people that to Do Good, you have to Do Bad, or at least be narcissistic-ally selfish. I think its pretty clear where that has led us.
Let's not forget that Grandpa Caligula came to office through an act of treason.
His election committee, led by CIA Director-to-be Bill Casey, reached a secret agreement with the Iranian Embassy hostage-takers to refrain from releasing the captives until Jimmy Carter's reelection bid was subverted---the so-called "October Surprise" deal.
All true, Reagan is easily one of the very worst, but none are worse than W. But it's telling how Obama has been among the pandering Democrats who are always quick to praise Reagan when political opportunism calls. Obama has been a tangle of contradictions from the moment he declared his candidacy for president, pretending to be an agent of change and progressivism, a community organizer with the well-being of ordinary people guiding him, while kowtowing to every rightwing nostrum and cause one can name. And it's now fairly clearly where he really stands on the issues: pretty much with Reagan and Bush. Maybe he's hoping to join them at the bottom of the list--one of America's worst presidents. So far, his chances look very good.
Maybe he(Obama)'s hoping to join them at the bottom of the list--one of America's worst presidents. So far, his chances look very good.-Ephraim
Very, VERY, good. Seeing as how I think Obama wants to make history his continued drive to the Riech Side of the political highway is dooming his administration to historical Hell instead of a covenated place in American History right up there with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. Oh well.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: Excellent post. I agree.
. . . and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.
Borax Obysmal apparently really does admire The Ray Gun. It wasn't just campaign blather. The current prez, who has nothing but contempt for the protests and counter culture of the sixties, is deeply culturally conservative. Toe the line, shut your mouth, go away. How old is he now? . . . 47? It's all down hill, politically speaking, from here. He will grow more and more conservative as he ages and his ideological arteries harden. By 2012 he will be wearing brown suits, eating jelly beans and telling young people to play by the rules or get out.
Not everyone becomes more conservative as they age.
Me, I was somewhat conservative in my tweens, but then came the draft & Vietnam. I became radicalized- a flaming antiwar liberal. That was 40 years ago. If anything, I'm even more leftest now than ever- if only to try to even out the far-right fascism of the last 8 years under those Neo-nazi pigs, Bush/Cheney.
VVAW
I don't know if Mort is talking about people becoming conservative with age. He is implying the social conservative Obama is today will become more pronounced over time - and the audience/viewer will bear witness.
That isn't the same as saying "When I was young, I was a liberal. In my maturity, I've become conservative."
Mort states Obama was never a social liberal, and that Obama holds the 1960s and protesters with general scorn.
The old conservative guy who says he was "liberal" in his youthful years is mistaking impulsive or spontaneous adolescent behavior ('tweens') for liberalism. This old conservative was always conservative, he just hadn't fully developed into a grown man and when looking back assumes his drinking and racing and fighting and fornicating was evidence of a totally liberal position.
Agreed, at 53, I'm only becoming more radical as I age. And I have never exhibited that classic tendency to align my politics with the intersts of my employers, occupation or class. I rather enjoy biting the hand that feed me....
Ever since I was drafted, I've had this irrepressible urge to stick it to the 'man' whenever possible.
Nice follow up.
I respect your tenacity.
At 5 I agreed with my John Bircher parents. By 13 they had f**ked up my life so much that I began to waver. In the 1960's to the 1980's I took part in several protest movements, all moving me further left. Now at 58 I am a radical socialist. Why give up now? The conservative movement is not giving up until it has enslaved us all, and then it will still not give up. Perhaps it will give up when the environment fights back and destroys our species.
Given this opportunity, how the hell do we get from Reagan to Bush to Obama? Give Obama some time to screw up if that is what you think he’s gonna do but for Christ sake can’t you indulge in a little Reagan bashing without projecting your view of the future of Obama? We know Reagan was an asshole. We know Bush was a major asshole. Let’s have some fun with that and let the current course make its way. Fuck Ronald Reagan is the theme of the day.
Kudos to all of the other posters, they hit the mark quite well.
Reagan & Bush(s) to Obama? -- hop, skip, jump -- barely a jump.
Hey sure, the Dems are different. But Capone was no Baby-Face Nelson either.
Yes. Obama has enough garbage to clear up.
As for Reagan, he reduced the power of organized labor. Since unions are the only method that working people have to help them get reasonable wages and benefits, he dealt a blow to us continues. He dramatically cut taxes on the rich. He claimed to cut taxes for working people, but although the income tax dropped, the social security tax increased. For many people, it just evened out.
He said "Deficits don't matter." Before Reagan, we were a creditor nation. It seems like so long ago.
I voted for Jimmy Carter. I have always been suspicious of the Iran-Contra mess. Just one more "official version" of something. I have learned to doubt everything the government says.
Although there have always been lies and distortions, I'm old enough (73) to remember when the "freaks" were not mainstream and when there was a media ready to try to call people into account.
All of this started with Reagan. Why is he so "deified"?
"But the game of "Who's the worst president" has only very limited value. It diverts attention from the real story, which is NOT about "who is president," but is rather a series of consequences of the underlying economic system."
Thanks RichM, you've summed it up nicely. I find your comments much more astute than half the articles on this site.
Excellent post, RichM!
Let me try to add something... although it ain't gonna be easy because trying to add to RichM's brilliant post is like being an amateur guitarist who goes on stage to play after Eric Clapton.
I read an article a few years back that talked about how the progressives were falling into a sort of mind trap by calling the Bush admin "incompetent" and "the worst president EVER." And, the Dem's in office also reinforced (probably intentionally) this mind trap when people like Pelosi said stuff like, "The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader."
This type of criticism misses the point. It deflects the critique away from the harmful neo-con policies, and turns the debate into a judgment about the president's management capacities. Sure, it is pretty easy for me to think that Bush was a failure because he did fail to address my progressive wants. But, was he a failure in the eyes of the corporate CEO? No! He was a HUGE SUCCESS for the corporations. I think it was a huge failure to get us into two needless wars, but the corporate stooges think it was a HUGE SUCCESS to get us into these wars... I mean, they have made billions and billions of dollars off of these wars.
While the progressives sit around and discuss how we think that Reagan and Bush are failures... these guys are successfully and competently advancing their neo-con corporate policies. These policies and the people they represent are the harmful things that are destroying America, and are the very things we need to be discussing.
Pointing out who should be on the top 5 for worst presidents is a waste of time!
Good morning, campers
As bad as Ronnie 'Bonzo' Ray-gun was, at least he was no chimpy.
Bonzo at least had the common sense to pull out what was left of our marines out of Beirut after 241 were killed(they never should have been sent there in the 1st place, but that's another point)
"Ketchup is a vegetable, and trees cause more pollution" seem rather quaint after 8 long years of Bush/Cheney fascism.
Chimpy squandered a budget surplus he inherited, gave his cronies on Wall Street the shirt off of Main Street's back, lied us into an illegal war & occupation that makes Vietnam look like a Sunday walk in the park, lost a city(New Orleans), and let the worst terrorist attack in US history happen on their watch. Not to mention warrantless spying on its citizens and making torture official state policy.
No, Bonzo is not even a close 2nd place for the title of worst prez ever. That infamy goes to the wannabe fuehrer, the self-appointed decider himself. George Wanker(chimpy) Bush.
Good article, but it doesn't go nearly far enough.
Let's not forget, along with the ignoring of AIDS, the uptake of the "War On Drugs", which was nothing but an excuse to lock up millions of Americans.
Let's not forget the privatization of many services that Americans had been paying for through the gov't, getting a FAR better deal when we didn't have to shell out for the profits of the already rich.
Let's not forget that he told us on TV that it was our "right" to hate anyone that we wanted, and so he divided us along as many lines as he possibly could.
Let's not forget that he ignored as many regulations as possible that had kept this country's companies honest and given us the highest standard of living the world had ever seen.
If I really thought about it, I am sure I could come up with at least ten more ways in which this grinning jerk hurt this country, but i just don't want to waste the brain time. He's not worth it.
I will say, at this time, though, that Reagan was the second worst president in my lifetime. W takes the cake, no question, but he wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Reagan, who set the table for such extreme incompetence. But it's a close race, no doubt. I never thought anyone would make Nixon look good, but BOTH of them do. I can't understand anyone who still thinks that Reagan was anything but a country destroying scum bag. The ten day long gush fest that happened when he died made me sick. I was GLAD he finally blessed this world with his absence, I just thought that it was a shame that he didn't have enough brain power left to see just how much damage he had done to the once great country.
So much to undo, so little time...
“President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics, that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day.”
- Obama, yesterday
Draw you own conclusions.
As for me, it tell me (like his earlier Reagan remarks) exactly what kind of tape plays (as a cognitive psychologist would say) in Obama's head. On this tape (more like a blu-ray CD movie), the days of the 1960's and 1970's were all dark and discord - with the specter of socialism, solidarity, and rejection of militarism stalking the land!
Then Reagan came, and all was harmony and light!
Meanwhile, back in the real Ray-gun world, my Fransiscan brother making his rounds about Cambria and Somerset Counties, cleaning the blood and brains of laid off workers from the walls of their foreclosed homesteads.
God damn Reagan; God damn Obama.
Interesting how an airport was named after Reagan when he destroyed the airlines unions and made flying the friendly skies more like flying the scary skies. The deregulation of the airline industry led to its demise and it will only get worst its no wonder planes are falling out of the sky.
You cannot include Bush-1 in the same "league" of Reagan and Bush-II, at least when it comes to their understanding of the world around them. Bush-1 was far more pragmatic. He did not gloat publicly when the Soviet Union collapsed. Gulf war-1, though a demonstration of western arrogance, was still a limited operation - just enough to push the Iraqi army out of Kuwait (I will not go into the whole legitimacy of the various regimes in that region and the western complicity, historically). Of course, Bush-1 shared the right-wing ideology when it came to the economy.
I think Robert Parry is one of the greatest journalists around. While I agree with the criticism levied in the comments above, he does a great job summarizing what went down under Raygun.
That being said, I too feel Parry left out some key parts of Raygun's woeful legacy.
Parry should've mentioned Raygun's trillion dollar boondoggle known as Star Wars, a faux technology we are still "investing" in. Raygun's spin was that this technology would be a dagger in the heart of weapons of mass destruction, but in fact, it has spawned a second generation of nuclear weapons and moved other nations to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Parry did not cover was Raygun's support for Saddam Hussein. This relatively hidden aspect of American foreign policy was ironic to the max. It was Raygun that pulled Iraq off the list of nations supporting terrorism in 1982. He also authorized dual use technology shipments in the billions (dual use meant that it could be used for commercial and military applications) and forced the U.S. taxpayer to underwrite these shipments in loan guarantees. To get around U.S. law, Raygun and his CIA used the BCCI bank in Miami to fund Iraqi weapons development - all this at a time when Saddam was actively using chemical weapons against the Iranian army on the battlefield, and more importantly, on his own civilian population. In addition to funding missile development, Raygun also encouraged German and French investments centered on weapons of mass destruction, and as I understand it, the U.S. provided anthrax and other germ warfare agents to the Iraqi government at this time.
Parry also could've expanded on his Iran Contra thread. While Raygun's crimes against the peoples of Central America cannot be denied (including acts of war such as the mining of the harbors of Nicaragua), he was funding these crimes by selling illegal weapons to the Ayatollah Khomeni, including missiles and jet fighters.
One more item I feel personally appalled at - the military shootdown of a Iranian civilian aircraft, Flight IR655, on Sunday, July 3, 1988. 290 people, men, women, and children died in the shootdown. I hold Raygun responsible for it - his ratcheting up of tensions with Iran after he was caught red-handed arming them was a work of a pure propagandist. Raygun defended his actions by claiming it was a "wartime" incident, even though the U.S. was not technically at war with Iran. And as it turns out, the ship that shot the airliner down was in Iranian waters - a violation of international law. Here's what George Bush Senior, Raygun's VP, had to say about it:
"I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are."
Raygun also never apologized for the shootdown, an act of state terrorism. And the men of the Vincennes, the ship that brought down the plane? They were awarded Combat Action Ribbons for participating in ground or surface combat and the captain received the Legion of Merit.
Now I ask you, "ain't America great?"
Afghan and Central America.
Effectively the same strategy for creating an indigenous guerrilla force to take on US enemies.
Parry fails to inform the audience Carter's NSA Brzezinski stayed on during the Reagan Era. Big Zbig and Khalilzad masterminded the Mujahideen of Afghanistan. Big Zbig was gung-ho for US involvement in Central America too.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Afghan Mujahideen traveled outside of Afghanistan to fight as mercenaries in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Yemen where they prepared more mujahideen for the Horn of Africa.
Big Zbig is a huge supporter of Obama, and if one were to read Zbig's strategy plans, he talks about a need for a transformational figure head for 21century global chess moves....Zbig spoke of Clinton and the Bush's with scorn because they were not visionary...Reagan got a passing grade. Obama is pandered with great "enthusiasm"
So many good posts here. But many miss the point by pointing out all the things Reagan screwed up. From the perspective of a Friedmanite/Neocon Right-winger Reagan WAS a great president. If you think Unions are bad, then Reagan was great, for example. If you disagree fundamentally that "all men are created equal" then Reagan WAS great because he benefitted the rich at the expense of the middle class.
Bottom-line: You can't engage in debate if the various sides debating disagree fundamentally on the definitions of what's being debated.
Bill Press made this mistake on his radio show when he said (in so many words) "Reagan ruined the air controllers union, so how could anyone think he was great." If you hate unions, then of course you'll think Reagan was great.
The Righties know this fact, and don't engage in debate. They merely spout the same thing over and over and over, in true Geobbels form.
What made the Good Amerikans angriest was the unmaking of the national myth & its pantheon of heroes by the rising generation of teachers & scholars who had been students in the '60s, and were attempting to teach their students the real history of the empire in which they were living. Our noble republic, founded by slave-holders & dependent on slave labor? horrors! The founding & expansion of America a long series of genocidal acts?? Commies, scumbags! Get us someone who will tell us the GOOD bedtime story about how wonderful we are!
'Optimism' simply means 'don't look at what my predecessors did, or what I'm doing now -- that's soooo negative!'
if it weren't for the reagan bashing articles on CD i would have totally forgotten it's gonna be 5 years since his death.
usually a whole bunch of "the us sucks" articles means memorial day or 4th of july is close. reminds me not to show up for work that day.
I guess the gloves are finally off concerning Ronald Reagan. The Republicans have used his illness and later his death to make criticism of the man and his policies seem in poor taste. Because of the lack of criticism, they were able to build up this mediocre president into a near saint.
I'll repeat it again - Reagan did not win the Cold War - Paul Henderson did in 1972 in the dying minutes of game 8.
This does leave one accomplishment in Reagan's resume. Karlheinz Schreiber is eternally grateful for Brian Mulroney and Ronnie Reagan's role in helping Helmut Kohl tear down the Berlin wall. Both Mulroney and Kohl are entangled in Schreiber related scandals.
Schreiber was involved with Airbus, MBB and Thyssen. Thyssen, mmm. Who was Reagan's VP anyway? Wasn't this VP related to Prescott Bush?
I voted for Reagan twice and Bush the elder once. My flat learning curve spiked in '91 when I finally totaled up the results.
Then I voted for Clinton - once. Then I gave up.
Reagan was a "natural" at reading a script and built his post-Hollywood career on it, from peddling the spiel for General Electric to peddling neocon B.S. from the Whitehouse. I doubt he (like me) ever actually understood much about any of it.
On the other hand, he did lead us to that glorious victory over Grenada (to take our minds off the Beirut Barracks Bombing).
I now wonder if it's possible for any one human being to be capable of doing that job. Perhaps the bigger question is why would a rational person want to try? (Would you apply for a job where they make you sleep at the office?)
Well, hell, that's show business.
"[A] strong case can be made that the Cold War was won well before Reagan arrived in the White House."
For anyone paying attention, it was obvious by the late 1960s. It was most obvious in the so-called "Space Race". By the mid-60s, the USSR space program was lost. Its design bureau for Proteon heavy lifters was effectively one man - Korolev - who was being pulled in multiple directions and who eventually died from over-work. During the evolution of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in the early 70s, it was apparent that the US would have to do ALL the engineering, significantly improving Soyuz' capabilities and safety features. By this time, there was ZERO innovation in the USSR's space program, indeed, it was barely operational. The USSR technical (and military) expertise was freewheeling, and rapidly losing momentum.
We also must not forget the revisionist Republican history that Reagan was responsible for the release of the US Embassy staff from Iran.
Some great posts here, thanks. I guess history's not entirely a lost art.
One line from the invaluable RichM struck me as relating to my earlier post:
"...when you criticize "Reagan", what you're really talking about is "Reagan and the Democrats who never seriously opposed him."
Yes, exactly. The Ds never called treason on the Rs, even though Casey's sub rosa "diplomacy" had cost Carter a second term; this of course prefigured Al Gore's capitulation to election theft in 2000 and Kerry's in '04.
How do these clowns dare hold themselves up as an opposition party? Or, more to the point, why do so many continue to believe it?
American voters: an uncritical mass.
I think the Ameriic an people, for the most part, have been deluded by the corporate media, the school ssystem and their employers. The D's and the R's are just two wings of the saame party - The corporations.
I was surprised to see St. Reagan being treated like a human who is extremely fallible.
Right on to that, American voters: an uncritical mass. People need to start tuning out all that network crap - at least stop believing it.
Reagan can't have a 100th birthday, because Reagan no longer exists. We should stop living in the past.
Was it Clinton who signed away our industrial base? If so then it's a close call between him and Raygun. Still, as worst president, I think Dubya wins.
Every progressive should put as their email signature, Reagan, Bush de-regulated the country, bankrupting the country and the auto industry.
Hear, hear. Reagan was the moron who told us we could spend our way to prosperity. He's the one who reversed Jimmy Carter's efforts toward environmentally conscious government policy. Remember, Jimmy Carter said that the need to reduce our dependence on petroleum was the "moral equivalent of war". We rejected Carter's progressive and long-term thinking in favor of the short-sighted and ill-conceived pablum that passed for policy which Reagan delivered in his scripted speeches. Reagan might well have been as ignorant and mentally challenged as W, he just was better at memorizing and delivering his lines.
By the way, great article recently by Paul Krugman setting the record straight about when the economic collapse we've just undergone began -- with Reagan and his economic policies.
I like to go up to the old Reagan library out there in the san fernando valley and have a little dance on his grave when I'm feeling crushed by the brainwash. it clears the vibrations.
Still USA is really torn its own guts out, its so ironic.
northisland great post you made a very valid point reagans systemic treatment of glb and
people of color as well.americas unions never recovered from his ability to con the
american public to constantly vote against their own best interests. xzorloc i would
like to do a little more then dance on his grave. my fantasy would involve a shovel and
some tp! peace out.