Remember That Time Ronald Reagan Shot Down An Iranian Airliner?

[ErikJ]

http://wonkette.com/554694/remember-that-time-ronald-reagan-shot-down-an-iranian-airliner-that-was-awesome#pfIvcYQyhlmQ3SF0.99


..................................snip

Media Matters points out that at least one Fox anchor, Chris Wallace, who was covering Reagan for NBC in 1983, had the decency to call out his colleagues at Fox for distorting history, which probably means Chris Wallace is a communist or something:

............... I was covering Ronald Reagan at that time. He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when that happened, and quite frankly he didn’t want to leave. And his advisers realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he had to fly back to Washington and had to give this speech to the nation, but it did take him four days.

Clearly, Wallace’s insistence on “reality” makes him the odd man out at Fox, and it’s really quite disgraceful to think that Barack Obama going to a fundraiser is anything comparable to Ronald Reagan staying on vacation for four days, because as we all know, Reagan deserved his rest and Barack Obama admits that he’s “lazy.”

Strangely unmentioned by either Fox or Media Matters was that one time in 1988 when America shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 people. Ronald Reagan didn’t do a primetime speech on that one, of course, because the U.S. doesn’t deliberately shoot down airliners — we were really sad about the loss of life, but we were also really sure it was an Iranian F-14 fighter before we fired on it (in fact, the commander and missile officer on the USS Vincennes got medals for their excellent performance). Even though the jet’s transponder signal identified it as a civilian plane. In fact, the U.S. has never formally apologized to Iran for that one, although we did pay out $131.8 million in a settlement to discontinue a case in the International Court of Justice. No apology needed there, because it was a war zone, and mistakes were made.

[GeorgeGist]

1. Well he felt safer at home with Mommy.

[geek tragedy]

2. seeing his evil mug today still makes me want to throw something at my computer nt

[daleo]

3. According to some people, there is a 20 year statute of limitations on shoot downs

And you can only be outraged by certain events if the other side does them. If your side does them, it is only a tragic accident. The other side, that is pure evil.

Also, sober sailors in state of the art warships and nice uniforms are allowed mistakes, because they are not drunken hooligans irregulars. Something like that.

Plus, deflection and oh yeah, that was a long time ago. Plus, Reagan isn't president anymore. Plus he is dead and nobody in the world has the right to care what the American military did under a president once he is dead. That's a rule. Everyone knows that, unless they are traitors or fellow travellers of the enemy de jour.