Joe Conason: What Sarah Palin forgets (or never knew) about Ronald Reagan

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/ronald_reagan/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/04/12/reagan

What Sarah Palin forgets (or never knew) about Ronald Reagan
She warbles a macho fantasy about our 40th president. But the real Reagan wanted a world free of nuclear arms
By Joe Conason


Listening to Sarah Palin, it is often difficult to determine whether her remarks demonstrate ignorance or dishonesty. She frequently waxes on about Ronald Reagan, for instance, revered ancestor of today's far right, whose real record bears little resemblance to the fantasies of extremists like her.

While attacking President Obama's nuclear weapons policies the other day -- and the strategic arms reduction treaty that he signed with Russia -- Palin said, "We miss Ronald Reagan, who used to say, when he would look at our enemies, he would say: 'No. You lose. We win.' That's what we miss. And that is what we have to get back to."

Now, Palin usually sounds bereft of even the most basic knowledge of history, let alone diplomacy, but in this case she had already graduated from college by the time Reagan decided to encourage peaceful change in the Soviet Union and rid the world of nuclear weapons entirely. In other words, she might be expected to remember those events, however vaguely, without reading a book.

Reagan's utopian aspirations were never achieved, of course, but the elimination of nuclear weapons was certainly what he proposed, more than once, in negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The actual history of the Reagan era is worth recalling for the edification not only of Palin but of the many right-wing politicians and commentators who blather on in the same clueless (or disingenuous) way.

snip//

A boiling zeal to discredit Obama as dupe or traitor has led critics on the right to falsify the content and implications of both the START treaty and the Nuclear Posture Review. Their lying necessarily includes a distorted account of the Reagan presidency -- very much in the old Soviet style of making inconvenient history disappear. But facts are stubborn things, as the Gipper once quipped, and the undeniable fact about Palin's sainted idol is that in his approach to nuclear disarmament, he was closer to Barack Obama than to belligerent kooks like her.

[Qutzupalotl]

1. I think she's forgotten more than she ever knew.

[tanyev]

2. They abandoned the real Ronald Reagan years ago.

Now they worship at the altar of the Ronald Reagan mythos that they created.

[Cha]

3. palin is dishonest so being ignorant doesn't

make her skip a beat. That's what sociopaths do.

[craigmatic]

4. That's ok reagan didn't know a thing about histroy either eventhough he was so old that he was there

for most of it.

[political_Dem]

5. Details, details...

But for the RNC, the facts never got in the way of a good story.

In Palin's case, she is proud of being stupid. She revels in it. The ugliness about her utter ignorance and imbecilic behavior is you can't tamp her down. She is in everyone's face 24/7. And no matter how much you get sick of her utter distasteful idiocy, she comes right back at you again like a KO punch.

Ultimately, what keeps Palin and her RNC, Teabagging ilk going in their utter stupidity is the fact that they feel superior to Obama. That one caveat keeps the nasty remarks and virulent racism continuing on in the public eye. They will not be denied when it comes to feeling that they must convince the public of their so-called "brilliance".

However, what they don't know is that the more astute among the public can see that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

[tledford]

7. Of course they feel superior to Obama, they are! They're white and he isn't! QED eom

[zbdent]

6. didn't she read every book about Reagan?

you betcha!

[bvar22]

8. Reagan was a"Cut & Run" President.....BIG Time!

When the Marine Barracks in Beirut was bombed in 1983, killing 241 American Servicemen, Reagan couldn't pull out of Lebanon fast enough.
He did the right thing too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing

[applegrove]

9. Jon Stewart did a bit on Reagan being against nuclear arms last week.

[Yavin4]

10. Sarah Palin Just Reads What People Put In Front of Her

She reads statements and collects a big fat check. She has NO CLUE about ANYTHING.