For anyone old enough to remember, how did Reagan do as CA governor and as president?

[Jamaal510]

I want to get some comments here and know more about this GOP legend. From all that I heard about him so far with regards to his "welfare queen" myth and his trickle-down myth, he sounded like a scumbag and a con-man.

[MADem]

1. He was a mean-spirited, bullshitting asshole. In both jobs. nt

[goclark]

38. let mental patients out

of hospitals...photo in newspaper paper of
lady howling on a fence..should be a google.

[MADem]

74. I remember coming back to USA during his reign of terror and being shocked to step over homeless

released mental patients--who were clearly unable to cope and had no access to services or support (because none had been crafted for them at that stage)--to go in and out of public buildings.

I was appalled.

I was accustomed to seeing beggars on the streets of 3rd World countries; the "American Beggar" was a rare thing up until the Reagan era. Now, we're inured to it.

[WilliamPitt]

2. My opinion upon his death.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4Udzd2/www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/PlanetReagan.html/

[Jamaal510]

47. +1

[LeftInTX]

72. Excellent!

[FSogol]

3. Just imagine an older and worse version of "W"

[graham4anything]

4. He slept for 5 years during the start of AIDS. Millions died because of his apathy toward it

it took a best friend of his (Rock Hudson) to die to finally start awakening him

He was totally in over his head on other stuff, and after that Bush friend's kid shot him,
Bush41 was in charge and may never have been away from it

He was though a very pleasant nice guy who started out a democrat
Who ran the Screen actors guild union
then for some reason took to the dark side

I know wihtout finding proof that Nancy Reagan, based on hints provided, voted for President Obama in 2008(of course she couldn't say it)

BTW, Reagan divorced Jane Wyman and married Nancy.

You can bet that would have been made a big deal

BUT the worst thing was the deal with IRan and the hostages to not be released and Iran/Contra and all that
He should have been impeached and ousted
And it was IMHO treason prior to his being elected to supposedly make the hostage be hostages until after he won

IMHO all of the above.

[markpkessinger]

63. +1 n/t

[Angry Dragon]

5. He was puppet as president

Read Landslide ......... not sure of the authors

[louis-t]

6. Hmm, let's see, lowered taxes, increased spending

tripled the national debt, negotiated with terrorists, busted unions, bore false witness against welfare mothers..... That about covers it.

[Egalitarian Thug]

96. He raised taxes drastically on everybody except the rich as President.

The same playbook he used as Governor of California.

[mike_c]

7. he was a doddering old man on the verge of dementia and obsessed with the cold war....

Truthfully, I knew nothing about him as governor of California, but remember his presidency well. I was rather apolitical at the time, although my basic instincts were very liberal, but even then I despised Reagan's presidency and wondered WTF was behind his apparent popularity. At least part of it was skillful manipulation of the media.

Reagan ran for his first term on a fiscal responsibility ticket, ran up the biggest national debt in American history, and then ran for reelection on that same fiscal responsibility ticket. AND was reelected, despite his own recent fiscal record. That's when I learned how stupid and easily manipulated American voters can be.

[hack89]

8. He passed racist gun control laws in CA

after the Black Panthers had the nerve to carry weapons in public to protect themselves and their communities
.

[Spazito]

9. He sucked as both governor and President...

he also sucked as an actor, couldn't get beyond B movies.

[sarisataka]

10. He would go on the air as...

the kindly old grandfather and say nice things the mob wanted to hear. As that was happening his goons were putting the beat down on the Grinch for cutting in on Ronnie's action

He 'won' the cold war by spending the Soviets into bankruptcy. They did not have the reserve of social programs to gut to fund the economic war that we did. As a reward to the poor for funded this victory, he gave tax breaks to the rich with the strong admonition to make sure their extra cash flowed down to the average American-I'm still waiting

Outside of that he was a pretty ok guy

[oldhippydude]

33. the soviet obsession with Afghanistan helped break the Russian will, and coincidentally their bank

a fact not noted by the Bushies

[sarisataka]

48. Ah yes

I forgot about our proxy war- I don't know how, I have had to personally deal with the fallout from it.

That did cost the Soviets a lot of rubles and blood. It created internal pressure similar to us and Viet Nam. That, Solidarity in Warsaw Pact Countries and our massive military build up was too much for the USSR to handle. Luckily the pressure vented in East Germany and Poland so their balloon deflated rather than popping.

In all the celebration, most people in the west, U.S. especially, never tallied what was our cost.

[tjwash]

11. As guv of California...he was actually better than the some

He was a Dem when he was the Governor of California, and pretty decent in regards to the state employee unions (being a card carrying member of the SAG and all that). I would still take him over shithead Deukmejian.

The Alzheimer's started to kick in after he left office and he became a repug signing-puppet for poppy bush after that.

[Le Taz Hot]

26. He switched from Dem to Republican

in 1962 so he was a Republican when he was governor.

[Blue_In_AK]

44. You are incorrect.

He was most definitely a republican governor.

[Octafish]

81. Mafia-enabled NAZI rapist who advocated euthanasia for the poor and working classes.

Did I mention he was a warmonger?

[Hekate]

90. He ran for Governor as a Republican, not a Dem

And he was awful.

His whole life people were suckered by his charm.

[Politicub]

12. As president, Reagan legitimized greed, selfishness and hate of government

A lot of people benefitted from short term gains, but at a cost we will all be paying for until who knows when.

And if you were one of the disadvantaged people in society, you were fucked.

The whole house of cards came crashing down during HW Bush's presidency, but the GOP myth making goes unabated.

[rugger1869]

13. He destroyed the free college education

That young Californians received in the state system. Just think 30 years ago you could go to Stanford for free as an instate student.

[Gregorian]

15. I don't think so. Stanford was never a public school.

Unless I'm corrected, Stanford has never been free.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. Stanford was always a private university, but the state college system was, before reagan

one of the very best in the world and was tuition free for residents. That system produced an entire generation of this nation's best thinkers, artists, and leaders. Almost everything that changed this nation for the better came out of that system.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. You could go to BERKELEY or UCLA for free or any other state university for free

Stanford is and always has been a private school, founded by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford in memory of his son.

[Le Taz Hot]

30. Iirc,

you could go to a CSU for free but the UC system charged tuition. Community Colleges were free as well.

[Brother Buzz]

70. State colleges charged tuition during that period - albeit less then $20 a semester

[LuckyLib]

32. Actually, nobody went for "free". But taxes subsidized one of the best state university systems

in the country -- the nine UC campuses, at the time 19 state universities, and countless community colleges. No one attended for free. But fees were low, and affordable for California's students --
in 1966, a full-load tuition/fee cost for a UC campus was $81.50 per academic quarter, $250 or so per year. Plus books and living/residence fees. By today's standards, practically free. State colleges and community colleges had very low fees as well. Ronnie began the slide to gut the system.

[Le Taz Hot]

35. I went to community college

in the 70's and there was no tuition at all. There were a few fees and, of course, books, but no tuition. MILLIONS of us, who would never have been able to afford an education, were able to take advantage of this. It breaks my heart to see what they've done to our education system in CA.

[byeya]

68. Rockefeller pulled the same classwar crap in New York State.

[Hekate]

91. You and me both. It was practically free in the 1960s when I went

I started at a community college, and got a wonderful foundation for transfer to the University system.

Friends of mine at the same college took a variety of 2-year degrees that fitted them for some great careers immediately upon graduation: Registered Nurse, Accountant, Electronics Technician, you name it.

My family had no money for me to go, and I expected to work my way through. But those first two years I lived at home and paid practically nothing for a first class education.

Now even community college is too expensive for many -- books in particular are staggeringly costly -- and the university has priced itself beyond the reach of middle class families. We are all much the poorer for it.

Hekate

[struggle4progress]

14. "We begin bombing in five minutes" (Reagan radio broadcast 11 Aug 1984)

[RDANGELO]

16. He really got the ball rolling on globalism and free trade

witch eventually lead to the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs. He spawned the largest peace time military build up in our history, but never asked the people to pay for it. That lead to the large debt and the recession under G.H.W. Bush. We did have economic growth during his tenure, but the created wealth was distributed unevenly toward the wealthy, and it didn't last because it was built on deficits. His overall economic policies which unfortunately, have been continued have resulted in the worst income disparities in the industrialized world.

[Arkansas Granny]

17. Remember "ketchup is a vegetable"? That was Saint Ronnie.

As a single parent raising 4 children, his policies were very backwards when it came to helping women, children and families.

[LeftInTX]

73. Let them eat ketchup!! It's worse than let them eat cake.

[eShirl]

18. Imagine W. Bush with real public speaking ability.

[Iggy]

79. LMAOF...

right, grandpa ronnie was a trained actor, after all... and plenty of propaganda training when he did those commercials for the military.

[struggle4progress]

19. Remembering Reagan's Record on Civil Rights and the South African Freedom Struggle

Pedro A. Noguera and Robert Cohen
February 11, 2011

... Early in his political career Reagan opposed every major piece of civil rights legislation adopted by Congress, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 ... As President, Reagan supported tax breaks for schools that discriminated on the basis of race, opposed the extension of the Voting Rights Act, vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act and decimated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ...

From 1984 to 1986, the anti-apartheid movement erupted across the country. In many cases, mass protests on college campuses were the most visible part of the movement. For a time, Reagan was as unmoved by the campus protests as he was by the brutality of the South African government. Reagan ascended to the White House embracing white South Africa as a valuable cold war ally, asking CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, “Can we abandon a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve fought, a country that’s strategically essential to the free world?” In Reagan’s first term the White House violated the UN arms embargo on South Africa, vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime and approved a $1.1 billion IMF loan to South Africa ...

On September 25, 1986, he vetoed the sanctions bill. But by this time the antiapartheid movement’s influence was so strong that even the president’s own party was embarrassed by Reagan’s refusal to stand up to South Africa. Indiana Republican Richard Lugar pleaded with Reagan to get “on the right side of history” by supporting sanctions. Such Republican dissent helped make possible Congress’s overwhelming 78–21 vote to override Reagan’s veto in October 1986. This marked the first time in Reagan’s White House years that a presidential foreign policy veto had been overturned. The vote attested to how out of touch Reagan was with the struggle for racial justice, a struggle that the Free South Africa movement had helped to popularize in the United States ...

http://www.thenation.com/article/158506/remembering-reagans-record-civil-rights-and-south-african-freedom-struggle#

[RoccoR5955]

20. Raygun sucked at both jobs

We only got him because John Wayne was dead. Reagan was a shill. Nothing more than an actor playing the role of president, while having his strings being pulled by big business.
During his second term as president, it was quite apparent that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

[Go Vols]

66. this

[Tikki]

21. reagan was an asshole...he stood on stage during campaigning and pointed at young veterans....

who dared protest..and called them traitors....I will never forgive him for that.

He never served in the military and he was an addled brained, mean spirited asshole.


Tikki

[Le Taz Hot]

22. I was still in HS when he was elected Governor

and I remember that one of the first things he did was started defunding the schools. We went from 7 classes per day to 6 classes which meant that you had to pass every class in order to graduate. Before that, you had a little leeway. I remember he closed down almost all of the state-run mental institutions and many mentally ill people were left to fend for themselves, many of whom became homeless and victims of violent crimes. I remember he busted up a protest in the Bay Area by sending in the CA National Guard.

As for his presidency, he presided over the largest tax increase in history by eliminating many middle class deductions including home improvements and interest on credit cards. He also had Alzheimers WAY before the end of his second term and doing everything but drooling on himself. His appearances were very very controlled and scripted and he was exposed to the public less and less. He introduced trickle-down economics and opponent in the primary, George H.W. Bush referred to it as voo-doo economics, which it was. After Papa Doc Bush became president he adopted the very same trickle-down economics that St. Ronnie pushed.

That's what I remember.

[EC]

23. Well the saying goes

we didn't have homeless people living on the streets until Reagan. He was like Rmoney, a salesman. He sold Borax soap and Omaha Insurance...

On edit: And I blame him for the out of control spread of AIDS. He did nothing year after year after year, but declare it a "gay decease".

[struggle4progress]

24. "Reagan Was the Butcher of My People:" Fr. Miguel D’Escoto Speaks From Nicaragua

We go to Managua, Nicaragua to speak with Fr. Miguel D’Escoto, a Catholic priest who was Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister under the Sandinista government in the 1980s ...

FATHER MIGUEL D’ESCOTO: First of all, let me start out by saying that, of course, Reagan is now dead. And I, for one, would like to say only nice things about him. I’m not insensitive to the feelings of many U.S. people mourning president Reagan, but as I pray that god in his infinite mercy and goodness forgive him for having been the butcher of my people, for having been responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 Nicaraguans, we cannot, we should not ever forget the crimes he committed in the name of what he falsely labeled freedom and democracy ...

He came to the Presidency of the United States shortly after Somoza, a Dictator that the U.S. has imposed over Nicaragua for practically half a century; had been deposed by Nicaraguan Nationalists under the leadership of the Sandinista Liberation Front. To Reagan Nicaragua had to be re-conquered. He blamed Carter for having lost Nicaragua, as if Nicaragua ever belonged to anyone else other than the Nicaraguan people. That was then the beginning of this war that Reagan invented, and mounted and financed and directed, the Contra War ...

In spite of the fact that the United States since the early 1920’s has been proclaiming to the world that one of the proofs of its moral superiority as compared to other countries around the world is the fact that it abides by the international law and was obedient to the world court when the United States was brought to the world court in Nicaragua and received the condemnation that the United States failed to heed the sentence and they till owe Nicaragua by now must be between 20,000 and $30,000 million at the time when we left government that the damages caused by that Reagan war was over $17 billion, and this, according to very moderate estimators of damage, people from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, people from Harvard University and from Oxford and from the University of Paris basically this is the team that was pulled together to estimate the damage. The United States was ordered to pay for the damage. Bush never even wanted to talk to me about it. I said, "Well, let’s have a meeting so that you comply with your sentence of the court." He said to me in two different letters that there was nothing to talk about ....

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/8/reagan_was_the_butcher_of_my#transcript

[thucythucy]

43. Thank you for mentioning Nicaragua.

The Contra war was one of the most cruel, unjustified, brutally dishonest excuses for foreign policy in the history of this Republic. That Reagan supplied billions of dollars in arms to prop up the theocracy in Iran in order to fund this illegal travesty just added insult to injury.

[struggle4progress]

46. Reagan's effect on El Salvador and Guatemala was even more gruesome

[thucythucy]

85. Absolutely true.

I still remember that Guatemalan thug that Reagan supported (Rios Montt) who also had the backing of Pat Robertson, and was later charged with crimes against humanity. And I clearly remember a smirking Alexander Haig suggesting that the four American nuns raped and murdered by a Salvadoran death squad might have "exchanged fire" with an army checkpoint.

How Reagan came to be idolized by so much of the American public is beyond me. His administration was a catastrophe from beginning to end. Every time I pass by something named for that travesty it's all I can do to keep from gagging.

[RebelOne]

25. I remember him as president and I hated him almost as much as George W. Bush. n/t

[smokey nj]

29. Embarrassed Republicans Admit They've Been Thinking Of Eisenhower Whole Time They've Been Praising

Reagan

http://www.theonion.com/articles/embarrassed-republicans-admit-theyve-been-thinking,19248/

WASHINGTON—At a press conference Monday, visibly embarrassed leaders of the Republican National Committee acknowledged that their nonstop, effusive praise of Ronald Reagan has been wholly unintentional, admitting they somehow managed to confuse him with Dwight D. Eisenhower for years.

The GOP's humiliating blunder was discovered last weekend by RNC chairman Reince Priebus, who realized his party had been extolling "completely the wrong guy" after he watched the History Channel special Eisenhower: An American Portrait.

"When I heard about Eisenhower's presidential accomplishments—holding down the national debt, keeping inflation in check, and fighting for balanced budgets—it hit me that we'd clearly gotten their names mixed up at some point," Priebus told reporters. "I couldn't believe we'd been associating terms like 'visionary,' 'principled,' and 'bold' with President Reagan. That wasn't him at all—that was Ike."

"We deeply regret misattributing such a distinguished and patriotic legacy to Mr. Reagan," Priebus added. "We really screwed up."

[Blue_In_AK]

31. I lived in California when he was governor

and of course in the US when he was president. What I remember for his governor days? "If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all," and to the Berkeley protesters after Kent State, something along the lines of "if they want a bloodbath, let's give it to them." Not exactly a direct quote, but you can Google it.

I didn't like one thing he did during his utterly corrupt presidency. The fact that the Republicans have canonized him is a complete mystery to me.

[LuckyLib]

36. Nancy and the Republicans have worked full time to burnish RR's reputation. He was practically

not present during the last years of his pResidency, with Nancy standing behind him feeding him lines. Lots of sleight of hand going on during those years. Once the naming of airports (yechh -- it's still Washington National!) and buildings began, she was on her way. A few decades go by, and RR is squeaky clean. And to be emulated as a conservative wizard.

[LeftInTX]

75. Who can forget Nancy and all her astrology stuff?

If a Dem first lady would have been involved in something like that it would have been curtains.

But it seems the media and the public embraced the Reagans and their astrologers. Go figure.

[KansDem]

34. I attended San Diego State University from 1972 to 1975

When I arrived as a transfer student from a community college, I heard that there were some students in the department of my major that delayed graduation for a year so they could have Jerry Brown's signature on their diplomas instead of Ronald Reagan's.

That was one indication of what some Californians thought of Reagan...

[struggle4progress]

37. Righting Reagan’s Wrongs?

By BOB HERBERT
Published: November 13, 2007

... Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21 <1964>, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights” ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html?_r=0

[LeftInTX]

76. Along with Lee Atwater

I never could understand how the northern states could vote for this guy. Even in 1980 there was a lot of contempt in the north for the south. Reagan was like a throw back to Barry Goldwater, George Wallace or Strom Thurmond. I never got it.

Campaigning with Strom Thurmond in South Carolina

[freethought]

39. Likable on one side, a disaster on the other.

It didn't take much for a reasonably intelligent person to see that Reagan wasn't the brightest light bulb out there. However, as his nickname "The Great Communicator" describes, he had extremely effective communication abilities at this disposal to which he used to his advantage. This is one thing that I believe Reagan haters should respect, his ability to communicate. The camera liked Reagan immensely and he knew how to play to it. Being a former actor, he also understood the value of sticking to the script.

I don't put blame on Ronald Reagan specifically for everything, for the most part, I believe he was a figurehead and the real power and agenda lied with members of the administration. I don't think Reagan was smart enough to pull off what he was able to pull off alone. There were others behind the scenes. However, his ability to sell his policies to the public despite the fact the policies were not in the public interest, was nearly without equal.

Many people found Ronald Reagan to be very likable even though his policies were destined to screw them over. I'm not sure who said it but it was stated that one of Reagan's greatest accomplishments was convincing the labor unions that HE was their friend. In truth his administration detested the unions and set their policies accordingly. Union representation has suffered ever since.

Trickle-down economics does not exist. Anyone who thinks so is simply a fool. IMHO, I personally believe that Reagan's administration were made up of closet Keynesians. It wasn't the tax cuts that got the economy moving back in the 80s, all that money moved off shore. When it became apparant to the admin that tax cuts weren't going to bring the economy out of its malaise they decied to go with another alternative. It was the huge military build up that fed the economy back in the 80s and most of that was deficit spending which is still with us today.

[Cleita]

40. He screwed up something awful

I nearly had a heart attack when he was elected President. My DH and I were friends with a movie actor. He hated him when he was President of the Screen Actors' Guild and had a fit when he ran for Governor and then was elected. Everything he said about him was true.

[struggle4progress]

41. Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism

By Jack White Saturday, Dec. 14, 2002

... Then there was Reagan's attempt, once he reached the White House in 1981, to reverse a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to private schools that practice racial discrimination and grant an exemption to Bob Jones University. Lott's conservative critics, quite rightly, made a big fuss about his filing of a brief arguing that BJU should get the exemption despite its racist ban on interracial dating. But true to their pattern of white-washing Reagan's record on race, not one of Lott's conservative critics said a mumblin' word about the Gipper's deep personal involvement. They don't care to recall that when Lott suggested that Reagan's regime take BJU's side in a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, Reagan responded, "We ought to do it." Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court in a resounding 8-to-1 decision ruled that Reagan was dead wrong and reinstated the IRS's power to deny BJU's exemption ...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html

[littlemissmartypants]

42. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101783779

[struggle4progress]

45. LOOKING BACK: The Nuclear Arms Control Legacy of Ronald Reagan

... Nevertheless, public concern about the possibility of nuclear war grew as the superpower relationship degenerated into exchanges of hostile rhetoric. An NBC/Associated Press public opinion survey in December 1981 found that 76 percent of Americans believed that nuclear war was “likely” within a few years, an increase from 57 percent just six months earlier. Many arms control advocates argued that Reagan was using dubious claims of Soviet superiority and resisting calls to re-engage the Soviets on strategic nuclear arms control talks in order to achieve U.S. nuclear strategic superiority. They said the effort would only backfire, spurring the arms race to new heights. Moreover, critics of the Reagan buildup feared that an effort to make Soviet forces vulnerable could increase Soviet incentives to launch a first strike in a crisis.

By early 1982, a broad-based citizens’ campaign had coalesced behind the idea of a verifiable, bilateral freeze on nuclear weapons development, deployment, and testing. That year, more than 200 city councils and nine state legislatures passed resolutions endorsing the freeze and, in November, voters in nine out of 10 states passed freeze referenda. Although it was sharply criticized by the White House, growing congressional and popular support for the freeze proposal helped put public pressure on the Reagan administration to initiate strategic arms talks with the Soviets ...

In July 1985, Gorbachev proclaimed the first of several unilateral moratoria on Soviet nuclear testing. Despite congressional resolutions urging the start of negotiations on a comprehensive test ban treaty, Reagan did not reciprocate, believing that continued testing was crucial to nuclear modernization efforts and SDI. As a result, comprehensive test ban talks were delayed for another nine years. In January 1986, Gorbachev countered Reagan’s Star Wars initiative with a three-part plan for nuclear disarmament by the year 2000. Although the proposal was uniformly rejected by his administration, Reagan’s private response to his secretary of state, George Schultz, was, “Why wait until the end of the century for a world free of nuclear weapons?” ...

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_07-08/Reagan

[struggle4progress]

49. "... Savings-and-loan deregulation was another Reagan initiative, spearheaded by a task force led by

Vice President George H.W. Bush. What did we get from that? A wave of criminal takeovers, leading to failures that ultimately cost taxpayers over $150 billion and resulted in more than 1,000 felony convictions. Ed Gray, Reagan’s appointee to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, saw what was coming and tried to sound the alarm. But his superiors were deaf or did not care. Gray — a forgotten hero — was destroyed ..."
Tuesday, Jun 8, 2004 5:05 PM UTC
The rich got richer
The Reagan economy was mediocre, and his economists' ideas were a muddle.
By James K. Galbraith
http://www.salon.com/2004/06/08/reaganomics_3/

[struggle4progress]

50. The Iran-Contra Affair

... In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan's approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so ...

The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration. Longtime policy adversaries Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the deal, but Reagan, McFarlane and CIA director William Casey supported it. With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran. Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called "a hostage bazaar."

When the Lebanese newspaper "Al-Shiraa" printed an exposé on the clandestine activities in November 1986, Reagan went on television and vehemently denied that any such operation had occurred. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Despite the fact that Reagan defended the actions by virtue of their good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans believed the president when he said he had not traded arms for hostages.

While probing the question of the arms-for-hostages deal, Attorney General Edwin Meese discovered that only $12 million of the $30 million the Iranians reportedly paid had reached government coffers. Then-unknown Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council explained the discrepancy: he had been diverting funds from the arms sales to the Contras, with the full knowledge of National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter and with the unspoken blessing, he assumed, of President Reagan ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/reagan-iran/

[montanto]

51. Crony Capitalist

Lots of the tax money that went into building all those cold war weapons ended up back in California MIC pockets. A great boon to California at the time, and part of the reason we are suffering so much now. He really started that ball rolling.

[Sherman A1]

52. I consider Ronald Reagan to have been the worst President in our history

until W. came along.

[WinkyDink]

53. This is like asking for an entire history course, FGS.

[FreeState]

54. Homophobe. Look up his history on HIV and be prepared

to be outraged.

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Reagan-s-AIDS-Legacy-Silence-equals-death-2751030.php

With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.

By Feb. 1, 1983, 1,025 AIDS cases were reported, and at least 394 had died in the United States. Reagan said nothing. On April 23, 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced 4,177 reported cases in America and 1,807 deaths. In San Francisco, the health department reported more than 500 cases. Again, Reagan said nothing. That same year, 1984, the Democratic National Convention convened in San Francisco. Hoping to focus attention on the need for AIDS research, education and treatment, more than 100,000 sympathizers marched from the Castro to Moscone Center.

With each diagnosis, the pain and suffering spread across America. Everyone seemed to now know someone infected with AIDS. At a White House state dinner, first lady Nancy Reagan expressed concern for a guest showing signs of significant weight loss. On July 25, 1985, the American Hospital in Paris announced that Rock Hudson had AIDS.
....

Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.

[madfloridian]

58. He did not like teachers or public schools. Put out a flawed report.

The demeaning of public education began under Reagan. It has worked well.

As governor of California:

And he certainly did not let up on the criticisms of campus protestors that had aided his election. Mr. Reagan's denunciations of student protesters were both frequent and particularly venomous. He called protesting students "brats," "freaks," and "cowardly fascists." And when it came to "restoring order" on unruly campuses he observed, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement!"

Several days later four Kent State students were shot to death. In the aftermath of this tragedy Mr. Reagan declared his remark was only a "figure of speech."

More...about his Nation at Risk

Three years into his first term Mr. Reagan's criticism of public education reached a crescendo when he hand picked a "blue ribbon" commission that wrote a remarkably critical and far-reaching denunciation of public education. Called "A Nation At Risk," this document charged that the US risked losing the economic competition among nations due to a "... rising tide of (educational) mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people." (The commissioners did not consider the possibility that US firms were uncompetitive because of corporate mismanagement, greed and short sightedness.)After "A Nation At Risk" the nation's public schools were fair game for every ambitious politician or self-important business boss in the country. Its publication prompted a flood of follow-up criticism of public education as "blue ribbon" and "high level" national commissions plus literally hundreds of state panels wrote a flood of reform reports. Most presupposed that the charges made by Mr. Reagan's handpicked panel were true. Oddly though, throughout this entire clamor, parental confidence in the school's their children attended remained remarkably high. Meanwhile Mr. Reagan was quietly halving federal aid to education.

That sums up Mr. Reagan's educational legacy. As governor and president he demagogically fanned discontent with public education, then made political hay of it. As governor and president he bashed educators and slashed education spending while professing to valued it. And as governor and president he left the nation's educators dispirited and demoralized.

[LeftInTX]

59. I saw him up close in Wisconsin in 1976. He was wearing pancake make up.

I thought ewwww how plastic and fake.

It was not a televised event, so the make up wasn't needed.


By the way, he was egged and tomatoed at the Wisconsin event.


Excellent thread by the way!!

[Jamaal510]

86. "By the way, he was egged and tomatoed at the Wisconsin event."

Was his SS napping on the job?

[LeftInTX]

87. I don't think he had SS

It was January 1976 and he was starting a primary against Gerald Ford.
He had a few people with him and that's about it.

This happened at UW-Oshkosh, which was small town.

The eggs and tomatoes made national news LOL

[Warren Religion]

60. HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FROM THE GODLESS COMMIES!

[Spirochete]

62. Three strikes

He sucked as an actor, he sucked as a governor, and he sucked as president.

[warrprayer]

64. he began the destruction

of the American middle class. And was a sock puppet for Poppy bush.

[erinlough]

65. Look up air traffic controller strike

I remember my dad, a long time union worker, turning to me and saying that Reagan just began the end of Unions.

[byeya]

67. Philadelphia, Mississippi. He began his campaign here where Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman

were murdered by local racists.

Raygun was a racist, a reactionary, and thoroghly mean spirited. He apparently was non campos mentis through most of his second term(if not his first term too).

One of the worst.

[Go Vols]

69. He should have been impeached

President Ronald Reagan answering a question about whether he recalls discussing aid to the Contras with leaders of other countries says, "it was my policy...not to be on record doing it."

[HiPointDem]

71. wikipedia has a good summary. the main thing i remember, being young myself, was his

stance toward student protestors.

in retrospect, reagan's governorship was a watershed, marking the right turn from the 60s, with all the same themes.

Reagan's campaign emphasized two main themes: "to send the welfare bums back to work", and regarding burgeoning anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at the University of California at Berkeley, "to clean up the mess at Berkeley"....

In his first term, he froze government hiring and approved tax hikes to balance the budget...

On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests at UC Berkeley, Reagan sent the California Highway Patrol and other officers to quell the protests, in an incident that became known as "Bloody Thursday".[7][8] Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters.[7] When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan joked, "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism."[9]

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

Contra his later stance, however, he signed abortion into law in CA.

Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was beginning. Democratic California state senator Anthony Beilenson introduced the "Therapeutic Abortion Act", in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California.[7] The State Legislature sent the bill to Reagan's desk where, after many days of indecision, he signed it.[10] About two million abortions would be performed as a result, mostly because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother.

Governor Reagan worked with the Democratic majority in the state legislature to enact a major reform of the welfare system in 1971. The reform reduced the number of people receiving state aid while increasing the benefits for those who remained eligible...

http://governors.library.ca.gov/33-reagan.html

[Iggy]

77. Grandpa Reagan was a complete and utter joke

I did not live in CA during reagan's glorious reign as Gov there.. but I recall CA residents being amused when ronnie decided to run for POTUS.. keep in mind he tried more than once to get the GOP nomination before enough voters were dumb enough to support him in large numbers.

As president he was an obvious front man for corporate America.. reagan stupidly, fully advocated trickle-down economics.. make sure the wealth continues to massively flow to the already wealthy-- and the little people will "prosper" as well.

grandpa was a simpleton.. he loved telling boring, pointless anecdotes and jokes.. the notion being these had some sort of profound meaning. Knuckledraggers like Gingrinch, etc., latched onto this drivel, thus also proving their miniscule critical thinking skills.

FAIL.

[madrchsod]

78. ordered the first aerial gas attack on american citizens

another wonderful thing under his watch was....as soon as you cross the border one could sign up for public aid and get food stamps.if one stayed long enough and laid off the weed and such one could get all the public aid. the black panthers scared the shit out of him when they went into the state cap building carrying weapons.

as a govenor reagan was out of touch then and he went downhill after that.

[lonestarnot]

80. Only had to hide his eggs once. And his old bag of a wife started buying up china as soon as she

hit the door, prissy old puss. I don't know how they managed the young Ron. I love him.

[Capt.Rocky300]

82. I was a student at San Jose State......

when he was governor. He closed Agnews State Mental Hospital and put those pitifully ill people into half-way houses in low incomes areas near the campus. Each morning the patients would be administered some type of drug and pushed out the door to wander the streets like zombies all day. Some were hit by cars, some arrested for minor offenses, others simply disappeared. If it was raining they hung out in laundromats, coffee shops, where ever they could find shelter. Campus security had to shoo them away from going into the dorms. It was a terrible thing to do. These people needed to be safe and looked after in a proper hospital. Reagan could not have cared less.

[Hekate]

88. My late MIL was a state psychologist who never forgave him for that

Governor Reagan closed the state mental hospital system. The theory was that mental illness could now be treated with drugs, and the patients could be sent to a network of halfway houses within communities. It was supposed to save a ton of money.

The biggest problem with that notion was that the system of halfway houses was never properly implemented nor were they properly funded.

The explosion of homeless mentally ill in California dates from that time. Really -- there were few beggars on the streets before then, and now they are a Third World-like presence to this day.

I was also a college student in California while he was governor. I was aghast when he ran for president and won.

Hekate

[muntrv]

83. Reagan was the one who started running up the national debt.

on edit: He also cut and ran from Lebanon after the attack on the US Marine base.

[Jack Rabbit]

84. Well, I'm 61 and a life-long Californian . . .

1. Reagan was a better president than governor
2. He sucked ostrich eggs as president.

[Tabasco_Dave]

89. I remember he let many small family farms die out

by not giving financial aid. Yet they still loved him in farm country.

[Hekate]

92. As president, Reagan broke the backs of the unions

The air traffic controllers went on strike for better working conditions and pay, and he fired them all. ALL.

Now, ask yourself -- when you are in an airplane hoping to take off or land safely, do you want the controllers in the tower to be well-rested and well-trained? Adequate breaks, enough time off to unwind and sleep, that kind of thing? So they can be sharp and alert? Do you want there to be enough of them so they can get the job done right, and fill in if someone gets sick?

You would think so.

But no, it's too damn much to ask for, and when negotiations broke down and they went on strike, Reagan fired them all.

So there were a whole lot of job openings at once, and a whole lot of new controllers willing to work without complaining about those silly safety issues.

He broke the back of their union, and he paved the way for the rest.

Hekate

[Hekate]

93. His avuncular charm conned a lot of people, but I hated him

A lot of Dems hated him. But we were clearly outnumbered, and of course the media was so charmed with the old actor that the myth of The Great Communicator was repeated and reinforced.

[Major Nikon]

94. He was a B list actor who could read a script. That's the best I can say about him.

Republican puppetmasters couldn't have found a better puppet. His handlers kept the media away from him as much as they could. Reporters were rarely allowed to go to his ranch. I'm convinced he was suffering from early onset dementia even during his first term. Even his son suspected as much. There were times when he appeared to have no idea what was going on. He frequently told a real life story about a WW II heroic pilot who won the medal of honor, and even told it to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. The problem was it never happened other than in a movie Raygun starred in called Wing and a Prayer. He certainly had no idea what was going on in his own administration. Even if he had been mostly lucid he just wasn't all that smart. I'm convinced he was dumber than Shrub. He was also a monumental asshole. As SAG president he was informing on his own union brothers to the FBI. He knocked up Nancy out of wedlock in what I'm convinced was quid pro quo for getting her off the blacklist. His kids didn't even care for him much.

[NNN0LHI]

95. You had to be there

RR was the biggest piece of shit we have ever had as a president during my lifetime.

I am not exaggerating.

Don

[LWolf]

97. I was growing up in CA

when he was governor, and reaching voting age, and not voting for him, when he was elected president.

He sucked at both jobs.

I consider him to be the worst president of my lifetime, beating GWB for that title handily.

Most of our political ills today were birthed by him and his administration.