Tear down this myth!

The failed rescue attempt had major flaws, adding to the symbolism of American failure, but to me it paled in comparison to the later Beirut barracks bombing.

You mean when the hand wringing of the Democrats led our troops to being told to stand guard with unloaded weapons?

Thats the thing buddy, we are yet to see Obamas administration, Iv seen the Reagan administration and the fact he started the skyrocketing debt of ours, and yet its his "character" rightwingers claim as some success.

And had Bush 41 held the line in conjunction with the Democrats on spending during his time, the deficits would have been gone in 1990. But no, once RR was out of office, it was back to business as usual. Raise taxes and spend even more.

reply to post by Swampfox46_1999


Yes, the hand wringing was wrong, but it assuaged Democratic "guilt" over Viet Nam. Democrats were taken to task by hardliners in the Republican party for not "winning" in Viet Nam.
The response (until Clinton) was to roll over and accept what the right wing was saying about them; to let the hardliners turn them from the traditional "with Dems you get war, with Reps you get depressions", to a party who couldn't be trusted with defense/military. This absurdness and obtuseness led to Kerry and Cleland being symbolically spit upon by those who would wantonly use military power. General Wes Clark was thought to not be good enough to be president.

What the USA ended up with in Pres 43 was a party that defied the old above-mentioned maxim, to drag the country into an elective major war AND helped set up the house-of-cards economy that is in a great recession at this point, further down the road to a depression than we have been in decades.

Yes, Beirut was a tragedy, for all the wrong reasons.

reply to post by desert

General Wes Clark was thought to not be good enough to be president.

And he wasn't for many reasons.

Onto your mention of the war. We should have squashed Saddam Hussein in 1991, but we did not. Clinton should have squashed him during his terms, but we did not. Whether or not you choose to accept the facts, Saddam Hussein was a supporter of terrorism and was maintaining everything he needed to rapidly rebuild his bio/chem arsenals and after 9/11, that was no longer acceptable. Now, back to Ronald Reagan.

I was born a military brat. My father served two tours in Vietnam, he was a photographer with a Navy construction unit that spent its time building bridges and schools for the Vietnamese. To those on the left, that did not matter, he was greeted with the words "babykiller" and spat at when he came home. I remember the local drycleaner stopping at our house at 5:00 AM to drop off/pick up my dad's uniforms because of concern over some of our neighbors and their feelings about members of the military. Unlike WWII and Korean Vets, our country (including many prominent Democratic politicians still hanging on today) treated my dad, his brothers and thousands of others with contempt. Under Jimmy Carter, the conditions got even worse. I remember the double digit unemployment, inflation and interest rates. I remember the shame when another country took over one of our embassies and its staff hostage, and our President did nothing.

Ronald Reagan changed all that. He refused to believe that we were the "evil" country that so many of those in the left wing thought we were. He encouraged us to think that we were a great nation and his policies were designed to move us towards that. Did the federal debt go up under him? Sure it did. However, it was not just Reagan's "fault". The democrats, which had been entrenched in the House since the 50s bear a large share of the responsibility as well. Reagan was determined to fix the damage done to the military in the post Vietnam era and the Democrats were determined to carry on with their nanny agenda. For the first four years he was in office, it was a catfight every year with Congress and how many times did Reagan shut down the government during the budget battles? Finally, in 1985 Gramm Rudman was passed, and it was working...the deficits were coming down, aided by the increasing revenues of the 80s. Unfortunately, the Court in its myopic vision decided it was unconstitutional and cut the teeth out of it.

reply to post by mental modulator


So you are honestly going to say it was the GOP's fault when Bush, McCain and several others said that Fannie/Freddie were tanking.....and yet Barney Frank, John Conyers and several other Democrats said everything was okay?

reply to post by Swampfox46_1999

History may be written by the victors, but it will always be remembered by those who live it. I appreciated your commentary. You amplified well what was already said about Reagan's ability to make Americans feel better about their country.

My father came back from WW2 Europe with medals and various souvenirs, often sharing his box of medals and trinkets with us, as we sat at his knee listening to the stories he would share. (Mother later admitted that there were stories he could not share with us.) The last time he ever did this was when I was 13, at the height of Viet Nam, and he leaned back in his chair and with lowered voice said, 'If I had sons, I would take them out to the back and shoot them, rather than have them go to war." This man, who went to church weekly and made sure our flag always hung proudly out front, said so much with that one sentence.

I had an older cousin in Special Forces, one of those "advisers" sent in early on to Viet Nam, who quit in disgust as a colonel, from the corruption he saw around him. Some family members and friends came back from Viet Nam safe and sane, others not so.

You had to suffer because of the ignorance of those chanting "Baby killers". Our military serves at the discretion of the CIC, whose judgment is trusted to use the military appropriately. The young men who were drafted were many times ones who could not get into/afford college or the National Guard (nearly impossible then, unless you had connections).

My suffering was less, but to be called "Baby killer" for a different reason, and my patriotism, my love of my country, questioned when I would question my country's actions comes from the same level of ignorance.

Reagan did help to give hope to a nation, as Obama is helping to give hope once again to a nation, and a world, that needs it once again.

What Reagan could not do was heal the wounds left open from the Viet Nam era, to be used as political bait and entertain audiences in coming years. The wounds must close and allowed to heal. If not, then for all the wars our soldiers have fought in, they will have fought and died in vain.

edit to add that Dad's sharpshooter insignia now belongs to my older son

[edit on 8-2-2009 by desert]