Left's tributes to Reagan are self-serving

[DarrinS]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...g.html?sid=101

The only good conservative is a dead conservative.

That, in a nuts , describes the age-old tradition of liberals suddenly discovering that once-reviled conservatives were OK after all. It's just we-the-living who are hateful ogres and troglodytes.

Over the past decade or so, as the giants of the founding generation of modern American conservatism have died, each has been rehabilitated into a gentleman-statesman of a bygone era of conservative decency and open-mindedness.

Barry Goldwater was the first. A few years ago his liberal granddaughter produced a do entary in which nearly all of the testimonials were from prominent liberals such as Hillary Clinton and James Carville. Almost overnight, the man whom LBJ cast as a hate-filled demagogue who would condemn the world to nuclear war became an avuncular and sage grandfather type. Down the memory hole went one of the most de able campaigns of political demonization in American history. Even Sarah Palin hasn't been subjected to an ad in The New York Times signed by more than 1,000 psychiatrists claiming she's too crazy to be president (though I don't want to give anybody any ideas).

Then there was William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, the magazine I call home. For more than four decades, Buckley was subjected to condemnation for his alleged extremism. Jack Paar (the Johnny Carson/Jay Leno of his day for you youngsters) was among the first of many to try to paint Buckley as a Nazi. Now, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times book-review section, who is writing a biography of Buckley, insists that Bill's life mission was to make liberalism better.

But it's Ronald Reagan who really stands out. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Gipper is enjoying yet another status upgrade among liberals. President Barack Obama took a Reagan biography with him on his vacation. A slew of liberals and mainstream journalists complimented Obama's State of the Union address as "Reaganesque." Time magazine recently featured the cover story "Why Obama (Hearts) Reagan." Meanwhile, the usual suspects are rewriting the same columns about how Reagan was a pragmatist who couldn't run for president today because he was too nice, too reasonable, too (shudder) liberal for today's Republican Party.

Now, on one hand, there's something wonderful about the overflowing of love for Reagan. When presidents leave office or die, their partisan affiliation fades and, for the great ones, eventually withers away. Reagan was a truly great president, one of the greatest according to even liberal historians such as the late John Patrick Diggins. As you can tell from the gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth from the far left, the lionization of Reagan is a great triumph for the right.

On the other hand, what is not welcome is an almost Soviet airbrushing of the past to serve liberalism's current agenda. For starters, if liberals are going to celebrate Reagan, they might try to account for the fact that they fought his every move. As Steven Hayward, author of the two-volume history The Age of Reagan, asks in the current National Review, "Who can forget the relentless scorn heaped on Reagan for the 'evil empire' speech and the Strategic Defense Initiative?" Hayward notes that historian Henry Steele Commager said the "evil empire" speech "was the worst presidential speech in American history, and I've read them all."

The point isn't that liberals were wrong to oppose every Reagan policy. But what they seem to ignore is that those policies were the products of a political philosophy. Sure, he made pragmatic compromises, but he started from a philosophical position that the self-anointed smart set considered not just wrong, but evil or stupid or both. The Media Research Center has issued a lengthy report chronicling countless journalistic examples, but my favorite is probably comes from Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in London, which in 1982 held a vote for the most hated people of all time. The winners: Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Dracula.

While the encomiums to Reagan & Co. are welcome, the reality is that very little has changed. As we saw in the wake of the Tucson shootings, so much of the effort to build up conservatives of the past is little more than a feint to tear down the conservatives of the present. It's an old game. For instance, in 1980, quirky New Republic writer Henry Fairlie wrote an essay for the Washington Post in which he lamented the rise of Reagan, "the most radical activist of them all." The le of his essay: "If Reagan Only Were Another Coolidge "

Even then, the only good conservative was a dead conservative.

[clambake]

poor buck. people called him nazi.

[George Gervin's Afro]

St. Ronny..RIP

[boutons_deux]

Darrin, do you really want to start a thread about St Ronnie?

I can post links that totally trash his faked legacy pimped by Repugs and conservatives.

Jonah Goldberg?

And you think HuffPo isn't credible?

[ChumpDumper]

If Darrin's bull could be converted to energy, the US would no longer be dependent on foreign oil.

[DarrinS]

If Darrin's bull could be converted to energy, the US would no longer be dependent on foreign oil.

I didn't do anything but post an op-ed. If you disagree with it, you can say why. Or, you can just do a thread drive-by, lay down an insult and leave like a little . The latter seems to be your M.O.

[ChumpDumper]

I didn't do anything but post an op-ed. If you disagree with it, you can say why. Or, you can just do a thread drive-by, lay down an insult and leave like a little . The latter seems to be your M.O.

I disagree with it because it is just stupid partisan ing, just like the stuff you do every ing day. It's disingenuous and ankle-biting nonsense from a bag -- both the op-ed and this thread.

Would you like to hear more about what a whiny little you are? I can tell you more about it if you like.

[DarrinS]

Would you like to hear more about what a whiny little you are? I can tell you more about it if you like.

Your parents must be proud.

[ChumpDumper]

Your parents must be proud.

They're dead.

That doesn't change the fact you're a whiny . Would you like to hear more about how you are a whiny ?

[DarrinS]

They're dead.

That doesn't change the fact you're a whiny . Would you like to hear more about how you are a whiny ?

You have an impressive vocabulary.

[ChumpDumper]

You have an impressive vocabulary.

And you haven't explained "Islamified" in the other thread.

Are you just going to stall forever?

Of course you are.

You have no point to make in this thread; you just posted a troll op-ed.

[LnGrrrR]

Just goes to show how right our country has shifted...

[cheguevara]

[DarrinS]

Why doesn't this graphic include Obama?

[byrontx]

Regan ing sucked. He was a pussy! When the marines got blasted in Lebanon all he did was withdraw. When the Russians blew the KAL flight out of the sky all Regan did was-nothing. ing wuss. If he had been a dem, you right-wingers would have been going nuts. He was a horrible President that spent money like crazy and put the country in the hole.

[DJ Mbenga]

Why doesn't this graphic include Obama?

i think if you turn your head to the left and look to where the graph ends you will see it ends on 08 before one cent of the bailouts were spent

[Wild Cobra]

Why doesn't this graphic include Obama?

I would also like to know why it doesn't show who was in charge of the house, where spending bills originate.

[Winehole23]

Guiding panel of resentment. Insulted by the (presumably feigned or opportunistic) praise of one's enemy.

If Dems have anything at all nice to say about Reagan on his 100th birthday, it must be because they are deranged and spiteful hypocrites.

What other explanation could there be?

[Winehole23]

(some people remember every slight, every schoolyard taunt or injustice. they carry the skittish bird of resentment very close to their hearts and it is never very far away from their lips.)

[ChumpDumper]

I would also like to know why it doesn't show who was in charge of the house, where spending bills originate.

Couldn't Reagan have just vetoed all that spending?

[boutons_deux]

St Ronnie, having encouraged and welcomed the politicization of the CIA (Wm Gates was a key politicizer of "intelligence", sucking up to politicians is his main skill), vastly overstated the Soviet threat, which had been declining for years, so he could hand taxpayers' 100s of $Bs to the MIC in a totally wasteful, corrupt military build up.

[Koolaid_Man]

They're dead.

That doesn't change the fact you're a whiny . Would you like to hear more about how you are a whiny ?

So your parents die and you run wild...sad so sad...

[ChumpDumper]

So your parents die and you run wild...sad so sad...

Nothing wild about me at all.

lol stacks of hundreds

[Koolaid_Man]

Nothing wild about me at all.

lol stacks of hundreds

ok chump

[byrontx]

Guiding panel of resentment. Insulted by the (presumably feigned or opportunistic) praise of one's enemy.

If Dems have anything at all nice to say about Reagan on his 100th birthday, it must be because they are deranged and spiteful hypocrites.

What other explanation could there be?

????
We can't just detest him for being a stupid ? Giving Iranians surface-to-air missles for example?

Oops. You were just being facetious. It’s late and I am half-crocked. Spurs won, again! Nighty-nite.