Reagan and Obama – NO COMPARISON

With President Obama’s non-pivot to the center, the Left is claiming that Barack Obama is really the second coming of Ronald Reagan. TIME magazine even featured a picture of Presidents Reagan and Obama photoshoped together, with the caption “Why Obama loves Reagan.”

Any comparison of Obama to Ronald Reagan is patently absurd. The two men are diametrically opposed on just about every issue.

The best example of the difference between the two presidents is their admiration for the United States:

Ronald Reagan saw the United States as a “shining city on a hill.” As president, Reagan told the rest of the world of the greatness of his country, extolling the American values of freedem and liberty. On the other hand, Barack Obama has gone around the world trashing his country, and heaping praise on every tin pot dictatorship in sight. President Obama even denigrated the idea of American Exceptionalism in a foreign country. Jimmy Carter would be a more fitting forefather for Barack Obama.

Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan bowing before foreign autocrats?

Brilliance from Rachel Maddow

With Olberdork gone, we’re going to need someone new to kick around. Luckily, we have Rachel Maddow.

Last week on Bill Maher’s show, Maddow made the following brilliant points about the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and missile defense:

Liberals mocked Ronald Reagan relentlessly when he proposed the idea of strategic missile defense. The Left derisively labeled SDI ‘Star Wars,’ and claimed, as Maddow did in the above video, that it would never work.

First, SDI was one of the most important factors in ending the Cold War. From a research paper I wrote on the topic:

When Reagan left Reykjavik [after refusing to budge on SDI] he sealed the fate of the doomed Soviet Union. Upon his return to the Politburo, Gorbachev said “[t]he fate of the country is on the line, and we are at a historical turning point”. Others were more blunt. Andrei Gromyko, a Soviet diplomat, said “[t]he Americans saw our weakness…and now they are applying pressure along that line, tearing out new concessions from us” . In retrospect, former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin would “single out the SDI as the…most serious challenge, the one that really made the Soviets feel that they are absolutely incapable. They had to succumb, they had to retreat…the [SDI] was number one, number one absolutely”.

The Soviets understood that SDI would render their nuclear arsenal worthless. The Russians also knew that they could not afford their own missile defense. Often overlooked by the ‘experts,’ SDI played a pivitol role in bringing down the Evil Empire.

Second, and drawing on the first point, if missile defense is a futile endeavor, why have America’s enemies so stridently opposed it? If missile defense is destined to be the most costly boondoggle in history, as the Left claims, you would think the Soviets or the Chinese would be all for it.

And third, it works:

But why let facts get in the way of a talking point?

Strictly Right Radio episode 77

On this Strictly Right, Ari examines the Alinskyite tactics of the Left, the failure of socialized medicine in the UK, why people lie about Ronald Reagan, and much more.

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Ron Reagan: Reagan-Truther

Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911. This year, President Reagan would have turned 100. In celebrating the 40th President’s centennial, numerous books have been written, and tributes prepared. Unfortunately, one of the books is by Ron Reagan, President Reagan’s youngest son.

In his book, My Father at 100, Ron claims that his father suffered from Alzheimer’s while in office:

Three years into his first term as president, though, I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father. We had always argued over this issue or that, rarely with anything approaching belligerence, but vigorously all the same. He generally had the advantage of practiced talking points backed up by staff research, but I was an unabashed, occasionally effective advocate for my own positions. ‘He told me you make him feel stupid,’ my mother once shared, to my alarm. I didn’t want my father to feel stupid. If he was going to shoulder massive responsibility, I wanted him to feel on top of his game. If he was going to fulfill his duties as president, he would have to be.” Pages 204-205

“Watching the first of his two debates with 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true. At 73, Ronald Reagan would be the oldest president ever reelected. Some voters were beginning to imagine grandpa—who can never find his reading glasses—in charge of a bristling nuclear arsenal, and it was making them nervous. Worse, my father now seemed to be giving them legitimate reason for concern. My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered.” Page 205.

“My father might himself have suspected that all was not as it should be. As far back as August 1986 he had been alarmed to discover, while flying over the familiar canyons north of Los Angeles, that he could no longer summon their names.” Page 218.

The July 4, 1989 horse bucking and discovery of Alzheimer’s:

“In July 1989, barely six months out of office, my father visited friends in Mexico. While out riding he was thrown when his horse shied at something in the trailside scrub. That my father, even at age 78, would be bucked off his mount was, in itself, an ominous sign. It’s a wonder he didn’t break any bones, but he did hit his head hard enough to cause a sizable contusion. After initially refusing medical attention, he ultimately relented and was transported to a hospital in San Diego. Surgeons opening his skull to relieve pressure on the brain emerged from the operating room with the news that they had detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer’s disease. No formal diagnosis was given, as far as I know. I have since learned from a doctor who happened to be interning at the hospital when my father was brought in that surgeons involved in his care, in what my informant characterized as ‘shameful’ behavior, violated my father’s right to medical privacy by subsequently gossiping about his condition.” Page 217.

“Doctors recommended to my mother that further tests of cognition be conducted the following year to measure any decline. Those tests, at the Mayo Clinic, confirmed the initial suspicion of Alzheimer’s.” Page 217.

The conspiracy theory that President Reagan was afflicted with Alzheimer’s while in office is common on the left, despite the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked. In order for President Reagan to keep the lid on such an ailment, his doctors, all of whom deny any signs of Alzheimer’s during Reagan’s Presidency, the Secret Service, and family members would all have had to be co-conspirators. Ron Reagan is a ‘Reagan-Truther.’ His claims are on the same level as the nuts who believe 9-11 was perpetrated by the government.

If Ron Reagan can attribute a poor debate performance to Alzheimer’s, perhaps he should get checked, as it appears that his memory is a bit foggy. U.S. News & World Report fact-checked some of Ron’s claims:

Reagan associates, however, say there was no surgery in San Diego.

What’s more there is no reporting about any San Diego operation on Reagan. News reports at the time of his fall say Reagan was flown to a hospital in Arizona, where he was treated for scrapes and bruises and released after five hours.

There were no reports of Reagan with a shaved head or skull stitches later that month when he served as a guest TV announcer at the July 11 baseball All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif., or when he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City on July 21.

In September, he went to the Mayo Clinic, where a small burr hole was drilled to relieve a fluid buildup due to the fall.

Reagan visited the Mayo Clinic in 1990 for tests that “confirmed the initial suspicion of Alzheimer’s.” Reagan’s post-presidency history, documented in several archives like University of Texas, reveal no such visit. And Dr. John E. Hutton Jr. his doctor from 1984 through Reagan’s retirement, told the New York Times that Reagan didn’t show the tell-tale symptoms until 1993.

Suffice it to say, there is a mountain of evidence contradicting Ron’s claims.

Michael Reagan, President Reagan’s son, released the following statements:

Ron, my brother was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.

The issue here is Did our Father have Alzheimer’s when he was President. He did not.

What a way for Ron to say Happy 100th Birthday Dad.

Reagan’s last chief of staff, Kenneth Duberstein, told CNN‘s John King:

I think Ron these days is mostly in the business of trying to sell books. That’s what I think. Day in, day out, from beginning to end, he was in command. He was fully in command.

Former Education Secretary, William J. Bennett, said,

In all my interactions with the president, I never witnessed anything in him to give me any concern.

David Gergen, who worked for Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton said:

I’m sure that Ron has written a good book and I look forward to reading it. I am surprised he revived these claims because they are dismissed by so many — and doctors who worked with him. And Howard Baker who came in concerned that he might be or had heard rumors that the president was slipping and came out to say ‘I found him as vital as ever’… [President Reagan had a wonderful memory.

Liberals have lied relentlessly about President Reagan. They cannot accepts the fact that he thumped them in two national election, including a 49 state landslide in 1984. The Left cannot admit that in eight years Ronald Reagan killed inflation, created an environment where the jobs market flourished, strengthened the dollar, laid the groundwork for a quarter century of prosperity, all while winning the Cold War. Instead, liberals label the 80s the “decade of greed,” and deride a great man as a senile old fool. For President Reagan’s son to stoop this low, all to sell a book, is both sad and pathetic.

Are you better off than you were in 2008?

During the final days of his campaign, Ronald Reagan asked voters to ask themselves if they were better off than they were four years ago. As we enter Barack Obama’s third year in office, Americans should ask themselves if they are better off than they were in 2008.

The Heritage Foundation published this incredible comparison of President Obama and President Reagan.

Socialism has never produced superior results to the free markets. The amount of money that America has wasted on worthless government programs is sickening – especially now that America’s national debt tops $14 trillion.

It won’t be long before the 2012 elections. Americans must reject the well intentioned promises of the statists and vote for freedom. Unless, of course, America is better off today than it was in 2008.

What’s that Little Tea Party Thing All About?

President Bush 41 sat down with Larry king last week and some of his (and his wife’s) answers were revelatory of what the elites in the GOP think.

As pointed out yesterday, George H. W. Bush was the establishment’s strongest candidate against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 primary. Bush criticized Reagan on tax cuts, his pro-life stance, and the defense buildup. Bush famously called Reaganomics “voodoo economics” during the primary campaign. Bush also repeatedly took cheap shots at his opponent’s age.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush ran as a “kinder, gentler” conservative. President Bush’s record proved you can take the Republican out of the establishment, but you can’t take the establishment out of the Republican.

It should come as no surprise that George H. W. Bush still does not understand the conservative movement. Perhaps he’s just waiting for the next candidate who runs on “big Mo.

In the aforementioned Larry King interview, King asked Bush what he made of the Tea party:

President Bush has no idea what the Tea party is all about. Unfortunately, the Bush family has had a propensity for belittling the conservative movement. The above answer is why people still do not trust the GOP. Many conservatives worry that if they place their trust in the Gran Old Party they will once again be spurned.

The establishment neither understands or likes movement conservatives. Elites see the Tea Party, social conservatives, and other regular people as below them. Ronald Reagan’s brilliant 1977 CPAC speech, which was sighted in yesterday’s article on the establishment vs. Sarah Palin, was premised upon reorganizing the Republican Party. Reagan did not want the GOP to be the party of the establishment, of the country-club bluebloods. Instead, Reagan reformed the party around the organizing principle of freedom. The American people warmly embraced that message.

This organizing principle of freedom is important to remember. Once the GOP dropped that principle they were thrust into the wilderness. No one wants to vote for the party of big government lite. President Bush’s disregard of the Tea Party is illustrative of how the party elites view the Tea Party, and the organizing principle of freedom. They do not understand it, and have no interest in embracing the message.

This Congress, and the 2012 primaries will be a battle for the heart and soul of the GOP. Republicans will have to chose between the conservative, pro-freedom message of Ronald Reagan, and the anti-liberal, non-philosophical Republicanism of the establishment. One approach can change the country, the other will just slow the onslaught of liberalism.

Establishment v. Sarah Palin

In 1976 and 1980 the establishment lined up against Ronald Reagan when he sought the Republican nomination for president. Reagan was the anti-establishment candidate, a role he relished. In fact, then Governor Reagan began his presidential run in 1976 by announcing that unlike President Ford, who had worked in Washington for decades, Reagan was an outsider.

The best example of Reagan touting his anti-establishment views came in 1977 at the Conservative Political Action Conference:

And let me say so there can be no mistakes as to what I mean: The New Republican Party I envision will not be, and cannot, be one limited to the country club-big business image that, for reasons both fair and unfair, it is burdened with today. The New Republican Party I am speaking about is going to have room for the man and the woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop on the beat and the millions of Americans who may never have thought of joining our party before, but whose interests coincide with those represented by principled Republicanism. If we are to attract more working men and women of this country, we will do so not by simply “making room” for them, but by making certain they have a say in what goes on in the party…
The New Republican Party I envision is one that will energetically seek out the best candidates for every elective office, candidates who not only agree with, but understand, and are willing to fight for a sound, honest economy, for the interests of American families and neighborhoods and communities and a strong national defense. And these candidates must be able to communicate those principles to the American people in language they understand.

Reagan wanted to fundamentally transform the GOP, and organize it around the principle of freedom. Party elites like being the “dime store New Deal” party. Who was the establishment candidate running against Reagan in the 1980 primary? George H. W. Bush.

Comparing any candidate to Ronald Reagan at this point is an exercise in futility. Every candidate claims they are Ronald Reagan, even if they have more in common with Nelson Rockefeller. However, some parallels between President Reagan and Governor Palin are undeniable. The most obvious example would be their respective abilities to drive the establishment of the Republican Party berserk.

The establishment is lining up to stop a potential presidential run from Sarah Palin, as Politico reported:

Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin.
Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns…
“There is a determined, focused establishment effort … to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin,” said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. “We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her.”

Now the First Family of the GOP establishment is going on the offensive against Governor Palin:

In the same interview the Bushes refused to say a bad word about Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Democrats are out of bounds, but movement conservatives are fair game. What the establishment fails to understand is that their ganging-up against Governor Palin only improves her chances. It was the “kinder, gentler” conservatism of George H. W. Bush and the elites in the party that the voters have rejected. Conversely, the conservatism of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, built around the organizing principle of freedom, is a sure winner.

The Presidency is too Big for Barack Obama

In the 1970s Jimmy Carter spoke of a “crisis of confidence.” Carter’s infamous ‘malaise’ speech was a fitting way to cap-off the most depressing decade in American history. For the first time in history, Americans believed they would leave their country worse off than the way they found it. Many people came to believe that that Presidency was too big for any one man. When Ronald Reagan was elected, people discovered that the Presidency was just too big for Jimmy Carter.

Like his ideological forefather, Barack Obama too is to small a man to be President of the United States. Like Carter, Obama’s lack of belief in his country is exceptionally depressing.

Today, 63 per cent of people think the country is heading in the wrong direction, compared to only 31 per cent who think the United States is heading in the right direction. A full 50 per cent of Americans believe they will leave their children a country that is worse off than the one they inherited.

There is a reason Americans are worried about the future. Unemployment is stuck near 10 per cent. For young Americans it’s even worse: 53 per cent of citizens aged 18-29 are out of a job.

Americans are out of work and inflation is poised to make an ugly return. The President’s response has been abysmal. His so-called stimulus, which came at a price of $787 billion, only stimulated the government. After the people expressed their disgust with out-of-control government spending, the Democrats rammed through a trillion-dollar healthcare law that was opposed by 60 per cent of Americans. Somehow, this latest government boondoggle  was supposed to reduce the government’s expenses.

Of course, the President had some confidence inspiring advice for the American people. First, there was Obama’s revelatory slip that “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

The President, who likes to keep the Oval Office at 77 degrees, then told his fellow citizens: “we can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.” (since when does the United Stated depend on other countries okaying their actions?) One can only hope that this White House sponsored diet doesn’t interfere with wagyu steak Wednesdays at the home of Dear Leader. It would be a real travesty if the First Family and all their friends were deprived of a taxpayer funded, $100 per serving, delicacy.

This is also the same President who admonished his fellow Americans that the United States cannot continue to consume 25 per cent of the earth’s resources. As if it is President’s job to tell Americans how ro run every last detail of their lives.

Barack Obama believes in a future of limited possibilities, with an America stuck in a state of perpetual decline – just like the ‘experts’ and Jimmy Carter believed in the 1970s. Contrast that view with that of Ronald Reagan who told his fellow citizens “we have every right to dream heroic dreams… after all why shouldn’t we, we are Americans.” The United States is too great a nation to be shackled by an inept and pessimistic leader.

Under President Obama the nation is suffering from a crisis of confidence, and rightly so. Today’s crisis of confidence is the same as the one that befell the country in the 1970s. It is not a lack of confidence in the United States, it is a loss  of confidence in the man behind the Resolute Desk.

Freedom’s Happy Warrior

It is hard to believe that it has been 23 years since President Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and demanded that the Berlin Wall be torn down. Today’s commentators would have you believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet Union, were inevitable. These commentators fall into the presentism camp, wherein they lack an historical perspective. Before the Reagan administration, the permanence of the Soviet Union was not in question. In fact, many held that it was the American system that was on its way out.

It took the courage and vision of Ronald Reagan to take on the evils of Soviet Bolshevism. Unlike his predecessors, President Reagan attacked the evil system that was, and is, communism. Despite the warnings of his advisors, President Reagan identified the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

The most famous speech delivered by President Reagan came 23 years ago today, on November 9, 1987, in West Berlin. Undoubtedly, the most well-known part of the speech is the part where President Reagan demanded the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Unknown to many, that part of the speech was almost scrapped. President Reagan tells the story in the book Speaking My Mind:

There’s a couple sentences in this speech about tearing down the wall and opening the gate that I like quite a bit, and it actually makes the speech. I’m told that the State Department and the National Security Council thought the lines too provocative… The line stayed and got quite a reaction from the crowd.

The line did indeed stay, and the man who described his foreign policy as “we win, they lose” won the Cold War.

Click here to read/watch/listen to President Reagan’s entire speech