Ronald Reagan told fibs all the time and got away with it.

[Hardrada]

Why can't Gov. Bobby Jindal?

[emilyg]

1. Every politician tells fibs.

[Hardrada]

2. Oh no!! Never say it!

[KonaKane]

38. That's a destructive urban tale

There are good politicians, there are bad politicians. This whole "all politicians lie" crap is a tale that's gone on long enough. Pay attention to see who is lying and who is not. It's not a black and white thing.

[emilyg]

49. Name one that you think

never fibbed.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. He fought in WWII.

On celluloid.

:eyes:

[Hardrada]

12. He really did confuse WWII films with the war he fought in Hollywood.

[EmilyAnne]

47. Really? I know that John Wayne did too, especially when he was drunk.

I hope Arnold doesn't lapse into one of his roles and start destroying California!

Oh, wait.

[whistler162]

51. I do wish people would educate themselves.....

Ronald Reagan, at the time a Democrat, served honorably in WWII when he didn't have to. His eyesight kept him out of a combat role and he had to lobby for the duty he was given. He joined the Army Reserve in 1937 and remained in the Army until the end of the war.

Dislike him all you want but he did serve his country in its time of need!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

52. So do I.

[whistler162]

54. and yet you ignore the truth!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

61. Ahem.

In the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan repeatedly told a heartbreaking story of a World War II bomber pilot who ordered his crew to bail out after his plane had been seriously damaged by an enemy hit. His young belly gunner was wounded so seriously that he was unable to evacuate the bomber. Reagan could barely hold back his tears as he uttered the pilot's heroic response: "Never mind. We'll ride it down together." ...this story was an almost exact duplicate of a scene in the 1944 film "A Wing and a Prayer." Reagan had apparently retained the facts but forgotten their source (Schacter 1996, 287).
http://skeptically.org/minther/id3.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

62. Ahem! Ahem!

[JanMichael]

57. let's not get all teared up and blurry eyed

he helped make military training films in Hollywood. OK? Hell, Rosie the Riveter broke more sweats than this dude.

[Botany]

4. Like when he helped to liberate the concentration camps?

And had it filmed so be would never forget ....

[MiniMe]

5. That is why they called him the teflon President

Everything just slid off of him.

[barb162]

41. Oh, is that ever the truth.

[depakid]

44. That's because he was the corporate media's little darling

-and he and his corrupt FCC Chairman repaid them by systemically destroying 50 years of responsible regulation.

[Hardrada]

59. Which gets us to our Nightmare Radio of today!

[theoldman]

6. Anyone with brains knew that Reagan was ignorant.

They did not expect much from him so they accepted a fib now and then. Jindal is educated so people expect much more from him. There is a difference between a fib and outright lies.

[Hardrada]

11. In retrospect this is interesting because Ike had to "talk down"

and give befuddled answers to the press so people wouldn't know how clever he really was! I guess in the Fifties people did not expect to intellectually challenged by their leaders. Poor Adlai Stevenson.

[baldguy]

7. "Fibs"? Like "America does not negotiate with terrorists"?

I guess it was OK to create them, train them, fund them, and trade weapons & narcotics with them. Just don't call it "negotiating".

[Hardrada]

23. Unless the media is on its knees in awe before you.

[baldguy]

46. What the media did for Reagan & Bush was what Monica did for Clinton.

[Hardrada]

25. Unless the media is on its knees in awe before you.

[leftofthedial]

8. Reagan got away with murder.

thousands and thousands of times.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. But Reagan telling a fib would be so anathema to the conservatives they could never believe it.

That's what drives me fucking nuts. We're all human beings here. But what happens in politics is the 'ideaification' of personalities, which is to say that personalities become associated with ideas. Therefore the mindset takes over in with the political crowd that human beings, like ideas are either right or wrong. You see it all the time. Soros has a theory or makes a prediction, but it CAN'T be right because Soros shorted a currency market, which is a clear sign that Soros (the idea) is wrong. Its impossible Reagan would ever fib to conservatives because Reagan (the idea) is right. If any thinking person enters the scene and points out the humans produce right and wrong ideas, rather than BEING right or wrong ideas, they are seen as weak, a flip flopper. It happens on the left too, I don't mean to just finger conservatives. But its the one thing that hurts more than anything else, because, put frankly, it is and always has been a system of control. If everything a person says is wrong, they have just as much power over anybody who believes that as somebody who they believe is always correct.

Anyway, rant over. That post just set me off...I mean, not its content, but what it reminded me of in culture.

[Hardrada]

10. Reagan could have been sooo Swiftboated but no one ever did.

[napoleon_in_rags]

17. In some ways, I think that's a good thing.

I actually really think its a strength of progressives that we are willing to take the good with the bad. I mean even ardent fans of Clinton here will critique a lot of his stuff, and there are clearly those willing to question Obama on some of his policies, without discarding the baby with the bath water. The bottom line is that progressive ideas stand on their own two feet, we don't need to resort to personality attacks to defend them.

[Hardrada]

21. That is true. When they told me that I was dead in the water

along with the splintered rad group I had joined (the SDS). I told them that I was not devastated because Ideas are immortal and I fought for such ideas as economic, political and social justice. So if I personally looked absurd and isolated, it did NOT matter. Some later people would pick up the torches and relight the fires.

[napoleon_in_rags]

29. Exactly, well said. Now was the 60's SDS or the 2006 SDS?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society

The fact that I have to ask is a perfect example of what you are talking about! :) Its a good thing Truth stands on its own, eh?

[Hardrada]

31. It was the original SDS incarnation. I was active 1967 to the end

and had a good run at jarring the Establishment and elevating the collective consciousness. I had hopes for the later group since they picked up the main themes and added some of their own. We never dealt with gender issues.

[napoleon_in_rags]

55. As a member of the younger generation, let me say thank you.

For making the stand you have made. It matters. Truth matters.

Peace.

[Hardrada]

58. Thank you! We did what we could with the low tech we had.

What we could have done with cyberpower to the people!!

[Metta]

13. Yeah, he made stuff up and didn't care that he hurt people. Happy karma, Ronnie.

... don't bother taking the winter clothes.

[Hardrada]

15. LOL!

[kestrel91316]

14. Reagan only got away with it because there wasn't any internet yet,

for all intents and purposes.

Now we town gossips will see to it that the "next Reagan" never has a chance........

[Hardrada]

16. Good point!

Because the Internet as we know it came available during the Clinton admin, I think the repugs were blindsided by it since they were having such success with the available media in spreading their ideology during that time.

[KamaAina]

18. I guess that's why Jindal is "the new Ronald Reagan".

a/k/a "The Great Prevaricator"!

[Hardrada]

19. He's off to a great start!

[Occam Bandage]

20. As Lincoln once said, "When the President does it, it's not illegal."

[Hardrada]

22. "We have nothing to practice but love itself!" -Teddy Roosevelt

[tabasco]

50. Got a cite for that?

Nixon said that.

[omega minimo]

24. WRONG. Hitler and Goehring called it "The Big Lie" sandwiched b/w truths. THAT'S what Reagan did

That's why we're fucked right now. :hi:

[Hardrada]

27. And the National Socialists had absolute media control also

and a very intelligent running the media, Joseph Paul Goebbels. In the movie, Valkyrie, which I thought good, one of the problems the conspirators had is that they "lost the message." When Hitler got on the air on the powerful Deutschlandsender, it was all over.

[omega minimo]

30. aye Goebbels

[foxfeet]

26. And Reagan's biggest fib of all

was that he could remember what he had for breakfast that day. Confabulation, anyone?

[Hardrada]

28. He seemed to be able to remember how old Nancy was but

who cared??

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. Reagan was praised for it. They called him a great storyteller.

No one expected accuracy from Reagan. They assumed everything he said was either a metaphor or apocryphal.

[Hardrada]

36. Even on MSNBC we still hear "Reaganesque" used in an adoring way.

[KonaKane]

39. "the great communicator" actually

.

[TahitiNut]

33. "Fibs"?? What the fuck? Are we talking about a 4-year-old?? That's infantile talk.

Pre-schoolers tell "fibs" ... they're LIES after the age of 7. :shrug:

[Hardrada]

34. Only a bit of deadpan understatement. Yes, Reagan consistently lied to us.

As he read what they wrote for him or delved into his none-too-accurate memories.

[JI7]

35. Reagan was a lot better public speaker than Jindal , plus no internet back then

as someone already mentioned.

[Hardrada]

37. Maybe, specifically, no Youtube! Or any video snippets online.

[barb162]

40. Who says he won't. Lots of people embellish.

Reagan was folksy and could get away with ANYTHING. People just overlooked whatever he screwed up, which was a lot.

[Hardrada]

45. He was the original "guy you wanted to have a beer with."

I remember he showed up in the Irish pub in Boston to hoist a brew to the great joy of all of The Free World.

[barb162]

48. That's about it. I never understood it; he got away with a lot.

[acmavm]

42. Ronald Reagan couldn't keep his acting career and reality straight in his

sick old mind. He would be the last to know if he was telling a lie or repeating something he read out of a bad script.

I watched Iran/Contra hearings. That was one terrifying (yes terrifying) exhibition. That guy was out of it and it was radically apparent that he had been for some time.

[Hardrada]

43. I missed that but I do remember that after 1986 or so he

became much much less visible. I wonder if we'll ever get the real truth about that. I know that three years later we were hearing jokes about him pardoning his coat rack.

[Cha]

53. 'Cause Al Gore hadn't "invented

the internet" yet and the bush coup is over.

[Union Yes]

56. Answer: The Internets.

[Hardrada]

60. I think that's right.

Look at the ridicule the CPAC is getting due to Youtube clips of the nonsense.