R.I.P Ronald Reagan

[Dale]

A certain era ended with Reagan, none of the presidents after him have his integrity.

Perhaps, although I wish we had some idea of what he really knew, or didn't know about that Iran-Contra thing. I'm inclined to believe his closest aides, who maintained long after RR left office, that he, RR, didn't fully understand the deal. Meese said Reagan was visibly shaken when he explained to the President that, in fact, Ollie North & co. HAD sold arms to the Iranians (who Reagan had steadily maintained were terrorists and enemies of America) and had used the money to fund the Contras, who Reagan consistently supported. Of course, but the weapons sale to Iran the the funding of the Contras was illegal and impeachable offenses.

Dale

[PhilO]

May he rest in peace; wonderfully accomplished life, going from actor to president (the first but perhaps not the last to do so), and facing the assination attempt with dignity and bravery.

However, I think it really simplistic and perhaps even insulting to his memory to paint all political opponents with the over-used liberal brush and to credit him with facing down the Russians when it was more other variables and internal Russian conditions that led to the end of the cold war.

I also think that mention should be made of Nancy; she was often viewed as arrogant, aloof and domineering, but has shown great loyalty and gumption in caring for the president these many years and expressing her own views strongly even though they do not always coincide with Republican party lines.

Best,

Philo

[mconners]

I've been reading Peggy Noonan's book about Reagan - "When Character Was King" on and off for the past month or so.

Some previous posts have been along the lines of "while I disagreed with his politics, I liked him as a person..." or the like.

Here's something that I would like you folks to consider: Reagan's politics came from his character and beliefs. They were one in the same. In today's modern society we try and try to compartmentalize our lives, thinking that for instance, how we act at work doesn't affect our off-work lives and vice-versa. It's not true. "Does a fountain bring forth both fresh and bitter water?" - James 3:11

My takeaway from Noonan's book was that Reagan was a consistent man in his private and public life. I believe that is one reason why he enraged some people as much as he did.

He believed in God, and lived his life in accordance with that belief.

He called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire" because he believed that it was true and had thought that way since the early 1950's. He challenged the Communists in every way he could because that's what he believed to be true and he acted upon it. He believed in Good and Evil.

I could go on about the man - he was in office when I was in my 20's and I am a recipient of his positive outlook on America and its people. Young people need good examples to help guide them in their lives - Reagan's life is a good one to learn from.

I also call to your attention to some excellent articles about President Reagan at the National Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com

Just saw this quote from President Bush:

This is a sad hour in the life of America. A great American life has come to an end. I have just spoken to Nancy Reagan. On behalf of our whole nation, Laura and I offered her and the Reagan family our prayers and our condolences.

Ronald Reagan won America's respect with his greatness, and won its love with his goodness. He had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom. He leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save.

During the years of President Reagan, America laid to rest an era of
division and self-doubt. And because of his leadership, the world laid to rest an era of fear and tyranny. Now, in laying our leader to rest, we say thank you.

He always told us that for America, the best was yet to come. We comfort ourselves in the knowledge that this is true for him, too. His work is done, and now a shining city awaits him. May God bless Ronald Reagan.

[BillChin]

What I remember most is Reagan's metaphor of America as a shining city on a hill. Reading it again now, I find it to be poetic, stirring, and inspiring.
+ Bill

Full text at
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/ ... rewell.asp
The close to President Reagan's farewell address to the nation
Oval Office January 11, 1989:

And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thng. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.

And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

[jim stone]

Part of a post I posted some time ago:

Ronald Reagan was a nuclear pacifist. He had a deep
personal horror of Mutually Assured Destruction. One
of his first acts as president was to retarget our nukes
away from population centers. He said: 'There has to
be a better way of staying out of war than for the leader
of one nation calling up the leader of another and
saying 'We'll murder millions of innocent people on
your side if you murder millions of people on ours.''
He said that the human spirit could not survive
under such circumstances. He meant it.

The Soviets had built
so many new long-range missiles--a four to one superiority,
with 30 foot accuracy-
spread in a band across Central
Asia, that there was a danger that they could take
out our land based stuff at home without damaging our
cities terribly--which would leave our submarines
and intermediate range missiles in Europe to
strike back. But would we use them? If we did
our cities would be blown off the face of the
earth. So the idea of a first strike wasn't so impossible
to a Soviet leader in a desperate internal power struggle,
the Falklands scenario. Time for us to build more
offensive long range missiles, so that the Soviets
couldn't get them all.

But Reagan refused--he couldn't stand the arms race
anymore. He wanted to move to defense, to put up
an umbrella that would shoot down incoming missiles,
and to give the technology to the Soviets. Then nuclear
weapons would be obsolete, we wouldn't have our gun
pressed to the head of Soviet children anymore.
For this he earned the undying enmity of the peace
movement, and the ridicule of intellectuals.

The only
people who took it seriously were the Soviets,
and it scared them silly, because they could't
afford it. Their strategy had been to build
political strength through building up offensive nuclear
forces--it was leaving them impoverished,
and now it couldn't work. There had to be
a better way, a new generation of leaders
came to the fore to find it, led by Gorbachev.

This was one of the wisest and most decent
things we ever did. Reagan saw in his
bumbling inchoate way that somehow
this was the thing that would break
the Soviet Union without causing a
war--that in this economic, political
andmilitary mix, this was the thing
they couldn't do. A more clever
man probably wouldn't have seen it.
And when the new Soviet leadership
emerged he embraced it.

It was interesting being an American
in those days, especially abroad;
you should have heard the things
people said about us then!

In the late 70s the Soviets moved
200 SS20s into eastern europe, with
10 warheads each. Carter, at the desperate
request of Germany, began deploying
Pershing intermediate missiles in
Western Europe. Reagan continued this,
saying, 'We'll take them out. Just take
out the SS20s, and well go back to where
we were in 1978.'

There were human chains across
Western Germany protesting this
American 'aggression'--a pretext
by Ronald Ray-Gun to attack the
Soviet Union, bringing the world
to the brink of nuclear war! Vigils and sit ins at missile
sites in England, the peace movement
fighting tooth and nail to keep the
Russian missiles in place; and we doggedly,
kept deploying the Pershing
missiles, saying to the Soviets: 'Our missiles
are closer to you than yours are to us;
we'll take them out. Just take out the
SS20s...' Then the Soviets took out
the SS20s and we took out the Pershing
missiles.

The Soviets were trying to break up
Nato, you see; they had conventional
forces able to overun Germany. The
only thing that could stop them was
intermediate nuclear missiles. The
overwhelming Soviet nuclear build-up made
them irresistible. The idea was to force
Germany out of Nato--the instability
that would have resulted, under those
circumstances, might well have led
to war which would have gone nuclear.

The Dems proposed a 'nuclear freeze' as the
alternative, and I suppose that if we had gone
that way, freezing with the Soviets ahead,
there might still be a Soviet Union or perhaps
we would all be dead. I doubt that the old
guard would have stepped aside just when
their aggressive policies were coming to
fruition.

Blessed be the peacemakers. Best

[jim stone]

Pope John Paul II Pays Tribute to Reagan

35 minutes ago

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer

BERN, Switzerland - Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II paid tribute Sunday to former President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), recalling his efforts to bring down communism that "changed the lives of millions of people," a Vatican (news - web sites) spokesman said.


On the second-day of a 32-hour pilgrimage to Switzerland, John Paul learned of Reagan's death with "sadness" and immediately prayed for the "eternal rest of his soul," said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

The pope and the Reagan White House worked closely in the 1980s in efforts to promote the Solidarity labor movement in the pope's native Poland and to end the Soviet grip on eastern Europe. Although the Vatican has denied there was a formal alliance, it said a few years ago that the two men were committed to fighting totalitarianism.

Navarro-Valls' statement said John Paul recalled Reagan's contribution to "historical events that changed the lives of millions of people, mainly Europeans." The statement also praised Reagan's contributions to his own country.

Two days ago, when President Bush (news - web sites ) visited the Vatican, the pope knew that Reagan was very sick and sent a "warm message of best wishes" to the former president's wife, Nancy, said the spokesman.

The Vatican and the American Church will be represented at Reagan's funeral, he said.

Reagan and the pope met both at the Vatican and in the United States. It was during the Reagan administration that Washington and the Vatican established formal diplomatic relations.

The move had been delayed for years because of worries in the United States that it would violate the constitutional division between church and state.

"It was a shock for the pope. His companion-in-arms in the fight against communism in the 1980s has died," said Marco Politi, co-author with Carl Bernstein of "His Holiness," a book recounting their efforts to overcome Soviet rule.

"There was a psychological and emotional tie between the two that John Paul has not had with any other president," Politi said.

[vomitbunny]

Just a quick note. Although Ronald Reagan was hailed by the religious right for being able to walk on water and heal the sick, he was not the religious type, or a church goer, and after his assasignation attempt, made no decisions or went to meetings without the consultation of a psychic. Many many decisions were made at the time and the date that they were made because of the timing picked by his psychic.
I think that odd. The religious right had nary a problem with it. Although it wasn't widely known, it was not unknown by a long shot.
As far as him winning the cold war, he did not start the war. It ended on his watch because the USSR went bankrupt. He may have hastened it somewhat, but not by much. They were in deep doo doo finacially when he came to office.
No, I was not a fan. He gave the religious nuts much of the power they have now. And I was no Clint Eastwood fan either, so when the old man quoted "make my day", I thought, gosh, no one is stupid enough to be impressed by that. Silly me. Those were the days when studio wrestling got popular, people though Mr. T had talent, and mullets were born.
I don't have total disrespect for the man or anything, far from it, but I think he has been misrepresented as the knight on the white horse.
I held no hero worship for the man. Why some people have such a need for a hero I'll never no.

[blackhawk]

Why some people have such a need for a hero I'll never no.

I'll never no either, but you're my hero, Vomit.

[vomitbunny]

You can call me Vom.

[blackhawk]

You can call me Vom.

No, I really, really like your screen name, Vomit. It's my favorite here on C&F.

[dubhlinn]

When I was a tiny little G whistle of a boy, I lived in California at the time of the Bay of Pigs affair so I suppose that gives me some connection with American politics hence this little story about the late Ronnie Regan.
Some time back in the Eighties,He came to ireland to check out his roots ( and influence the direction of the "Irish vote"). He came to a tiny little bog village called Ballyporeen, which translates as " the place of the little potatoes", where he was photographed with a pint of the black stuff and all that kind of mallarkey.
Many Irish people found this rather distasteful and as is often the way of us Irish, a little song was composed to mark the occasion, the lyric being,
Hey Ronnie Reagan, I'm black and I'm pagan,
I'm gay,I'm left and I'm right.
I'm a non-fundamentalist enviromentalist,
and you're just a big bag of sh*t.

A true story.

May he rest in peace,
slan,
D.

:roll:

[fancypiper]

RIP, Ronald Reagan, I wish I could have been in service under you.

Referring to your wife as "Mommy" is just slightly creepy.

My wife turned from Ann to Momma, and I changed from Phil to Dad on the birth of our first kid.

It is to keep the kids from calling you by your first name thing.

It is a parenting thing, you need to parent and not be "friends" of your kids. Being on a first name basis doesn't help this. It is the most challenging job in the world to start another human being from scratch, guiding him/her to independence and doing a decent job of it.

RR came closer to my political philosophy than any other president, he learned a lot from JFK and used a lot of his ideas such as tax cuts to improve the economy (works every time it has been tried and federal revenues increase as a result).

I was surprised when he pulled out of Lebenon (sp). I thought we had better intelligence services then and could have done something. If only we had had good military intelligence and today's technology then, the middle east might have not been nearly the problem it has always been as long as I can remember (and what I have read about before my memory began).

Other than that, I was well pleased with his administration.

I know that you are in a better place now, Ronald Reagan and I salute you.

[docrrnmwp]

6/6/04

I probably know more about Mr. Reagan than most of you. I was a California State employee when he was that State's governor & active in Politics (first a Republican, then a Democrat) while he was in the White House. Despite sadness that he had to be oblivious to his own last years (always a sad outcome), I can't like the man of his memory. Under his "watch," the USA got voodoo economics. A few good things happened then--the USA got Sandra Day O'Connor as a supreme court justice & the Cold War ended.

On balance, however, I think Mr. Reagan was a rather ordinary President. (However, IMHO, he's better than the current one. Smarter, too.)

As a part-Irish contributor to this, I'll sign off by reminding readers that there were two US Presidents who were 100% Irish--JFK and RR. Stranger still, they were distantly related. (They were both descendants of Brian Boru.) Otherwise, they had little in common.

Happy whistling!

"docrrnmwp" (Dan O'Connell, Rio Rancho, NM)

[Redwolf]

My fondest memory of President Reagan is of the address he gave to the nation on the day of the Challenger explosion. We were all just stunned that day. I remember going to Papa's restaurant at the Way Station Inn in Monterey for lunch that day...not really hungry, but needing to get out of the office for a while. Of course, the TV in the lounge kept playing the explosion over and over...there was no getting away from it. Then President Reagan came on and gave his tribute to the astronauts, and when he quoted from John Gillespie Magee's poem "High Flight," I was finally able to give way to tears.

I didn't always agree with his politics, but admired him as a man of integrity and charisma. He touched the broken heart of a sorrowful nation that day, and for that I will always be grateful.

I think it's sweet that he called Nancy "Mommy." My husband refers to me as "Mama" more often than not (and I call him "Daddy")...as someone else mentioned, it's just something that tends to happen when two people have children together and raise them together. Nothing "creepy" about it.

And speaking of Nancy, while she was certainly not the world's most popular first lady, her devotion to and love for her husband was absolute and obvious, and for that I honor her and I pray for solace for her during this heartbreaking time. While all married couples know that, unless we are very lucky, one of us will outlive the other, the thought isn't something we want to dwell on...the years after the death of one's other half must stretch out before one like a chasm.

Farewell, Ronald Reagan. May you find rest beyond the river.

Redwolf

[The Weekenders]

Glad to see some of the more moderate responses to this sad eventuality. One of the lib talk show hosts was playing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" last evening.

In some ways, Reagan was like the father you were embarassed to bring your friends home to, because he would say something corny or too cheerful when you were absorbed in teen angst. His public chiding of Gorby made me wince in that way. His whole demeanor stood in contrast to the "perpetually unhappy" libs in Berkeley in those days. Ya know, the kind of people who would attack you for being complacent
"when there are people suffering in Elll Saaaalvadorrr." Nevertheless, like metaphoric frustrated teens, many of us just wanted to get out of the house and move on, away from his style.

His presidency was mind-bending regarding the fact that he was a professional actor. On the one hand, they all are in a way but he had the training to be better at it, and that was scary to me at the time. The facts about the astrology, his unhappy kids tarnished the lustre pretty good for me. He reminded me of so many other people who have failed to balance very successful professional lives with raising their families, but, by the same token, raising a kid in California in the 60s challenged everybody I knew at the time. To me, he joined Lucille Ball and others with the glamorous dysfunction, as described by his kids in their various books.

But politically, he took on the Soviet Union and in the end, he (and the US) were still standing. To be able to negotiate anything with the Kremlin took what most people lacked and if he was just acting, he should have gotten an Oscar for it.

RIP, Mr. Reagan.