While the GOP debates on his grave, let's revisit: Alterman's "REAGAN Was.. A Pathological LIAR"

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Published on Friday, March 10, 2000 in The Nation
Ronald Reagan Was Many Things, But Most Undeniably He Was A Pathological Liar
by Eric Alterman

Both Republican candidates battled to claim the mantle of the Gipper. John McCain calls himself "a true Reagan Republican." George W. Bush retorts, "It is not Reaganesque to say one thing and do another." The pundits keep score but, once again, miss the point. If McCain wants to enjoy another episode of his now-famous penchant for public self-flagellation, that's his business. But Bush's exercise in unctuous untruth appears to be accepted at face value. It's as if Reagan, now diagnosed with Alzheimer's, has given the rest of us amnesia.

For Ronald Reagan was many things, but most undeniably he was a pathological liar. True, he also gave every impression of being an unbelievable moron (which is why Saturday Night Live could once parody his pathetic excuses for the Iran/contra scandal with a skit that depicted Reagan as--get this!--brilliant and competent). His worshipful, if fanciful, biographer Edmund Morris even calls him an "apparent airhead." The President's famous cluelessness was so obvious during his years in office that his defenders would attempt to deploy it as a defense of his actions, as if he were a small child or a beloved but retarded uncle. The President tended to "build these little worlds and live in them," noted a senior adviser. "He makes things up and believes them," explained one of his kids.

Recall that ol' Dutch frequently made arguments about history based on movies he half-recalled. He thought he'd liberated concentration camps. He invented what he called "a verbal message" from the Pope in support of his Central America policies, news to everyone in Vatican City. In 1985, Reagan one day announced that the vicious apartheid regime of P.W. Botha had already "eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country."

Not only did Reagan make things up, he also forgot some things that most of us consider pretty important. Morris, for instance, lets us in on the astonishing fact that the President not only did not know his own Secretary of Housing and Urban Development--no big whoop, as the guy was, after all, black--but that Mr. Family Values also failed to recognize his own son (his own son!) while attending his graduation. If any of us had a parent given to such behavior, we might feel compelled to look into some sort of institutionalized care, if only for his own protection.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/031000-101.htm

[AX10]

1. K & R! Recommended! Recommended! Recommended!

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

Reagan was the real start of the rightward shift in America. We have a chance next year to begin reversing it, not just stopping it, which is what Clinton was able to do. That was fine, but we must move away from the rightists.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

12. actually, clinton let these guys off the hook

had he not dropped iran-contra, half the current administration wouldn't be in power

[AX10]

13. True.

[The Count]

2. And that's the best they have - easy to aspire to such lows...

[deminks]

3. Thank you. Now whenever I see a repuke genuflecting to St. Ronnie,

I can come here for sanity.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

4. My fav Reagan lie is about the value of telling the truth

The Myth:Where he was playing football and the referee called a play wrong in favor of Ronnie's team (I'm not a sports guy, so I don't know the specific terms). Reagan came forward and said that it wrong and asked it be corrected. It was and the points were switched causing Reagan's team to lose the game. But Ronnie's teammates were proud of him because "I told the truth"

The truth: A reporter looked into Reagan's football history and of all the games Reagan played in, the score was never close enough for such a switch to change the outcome of the game. When asked, Regan he couldn't remember (surprise, surprise), but that the story still made a good point.

So yes, only Regan could tell a great lie about the power of telling the truth. Remember that next time you see Peggy Noonan waxing orgasmically about the Gipper's supposed 'character"
(You can find a better recount of this story than mine in Al Franken's "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot"

[Swamp Rat]

5. Kick to the Greatest!

:kick:

[muntrv]

6. This is the same retard who called ketchup a vegetable.

[hfojvt]

8. well, he was right about that

it is made from tomatoes.

[tanyev]

11. Except that he did it to try to justify reducing the size and cost of school lunches.

[hfojvt]

7. sometimes sons are easy to forget

I came out of church one time, freshly shaven and with hair cut and wearing a suit. My parents did not recognize me. I also spoke to a guy once and said I remembered his son from band. He insisted that his son never was in band, although I insisted he was. I was sure of it. Later, I found an old program that proved me right. To be fair, Reagan was speaking at his son's graduation, and probably spoke at many. For all we know, the story may have been a joke. He may have pretended to not recognize his son. Or he may have genuinely been an aloof parent - too busy with his career and ambitions to notice his children. I read Scott Nearing's autobiography and he does not even mention his first wife, nor his estranged son.

The really sad thing is the way we accepted his stupidity and errors. A cartoon I saved from the time showed the debate. Carter was talking calculus, Reagan was talking fairy tales. America preferred the fairy tales - 'give us our tax cuts!! We believe in the Laffer curve.' Seems to me though, that the media spent four years vilifying Carter and talking doom about the economy.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

9. Another fav. St. Ronnie moment- recalling a movie as fact-re:medal of honor

12/12/83
President Reagan, addressing the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, tells of the captain of a B-17 who went down with his plane voluntarily when he and the crew were unable to rescue the trapped and wounded ball-turret gunner. "The last man to leave" said the President, "saw the commander sit down on the floor. He took the boy's hand and said 'Never mind, son, we'll ride it down together.' Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously awarded." (See 12/16/83)
---
Columnist Lars-Erik Nelson-after checking the citations on all 434 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during WWII-reveals that none of them match President Reagans' story. "It didn't happen," writes Nelson. "The President of the United States went before and audience of 300 real Congessional Medal of Honor winners and told them about a make-believe Medal of Honor Winner." Responds Larry Speakes, "If you tell the same story five times, it's true." (See 12/28/83)
----
12/28/83
Lars-Erik Nelson reports that a reader saw a scene very similar to President Reagan's Medal of Honor story in the 1944 movie "Wing And a Prayer."

from:
http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1983.html

a great archive of Reagan stupidity and evil

[C_U_L8R]

10. It seem to be a true Reagan Republican...

that you need to be delusional.

Yup... makes total sense.

[moondust]

14. "I don't recall."

I think it was RR who institutionalized the "Duh, I fergot" legal defense during Iran/Contra and it worked. He got away with murder. Naturally Republicans then adopted it as their MO when covering up crimes in legal proceedings. Recently used liberally by Gonzo.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

16. Bill Maher on Gonzo - He said everything but "No hablo Ingles" to Congress

The "Duh, I forgot" defense.

[indepat]

15. 'pukes by nature must be pathological liars, at least to themselves

for no one in their right (no pun intended) mind could swallow any of a multitude of mammoth 'puke lies.

[Major Hogwash]

17. When Reagan blamed trees for contributing to air pollution, that was when I got scared.

Because he had access to "the button".

The invasion of the isle of Grenada in 1983 was designed to get the bombing of the Marine HQ's in Beirut, Lebanon off of the front pages and out of the news.
And the media complied.