Bret,

*ROF'L!*

So... Is this an example of Libral compassion? <g> Or Liberal Cynicism? *bg*

I'll try hard to forget all those folks who felt better abuot this country, the increased prosperity, lower inflation and the other stuff since it obviously didn't happen since you have such hard feelings.

Suffice it to say we disagree. I'm content to leave it at that.

Best,

DD


>>Ok I need to ask this, I was still a young man(10)when Reagan left office in '88 What made him such a great president? I know this answer alone could fill a forum but I consistently hear on how great a president he was and just studying his policy does not give me any good answers. TIA
>
>Right-wingers love him because he brought them power. He was a better actor than many people realize, and a more talented demagogue. He had a remarkable gift for Orwellian double-think. He seemed to believe everything he said, no matter how absurd or contradictory. That made him seem honest, but it was the honesty of a child who doesn't know the difference between truth and a lie. He had an endless supply of easy answers to difficult problems. By building weapons and destroying third world countries he pretended to be tough. By talking often about cutting spending, he made people forget his inability to show the necessary leadership to make hard choices and actually control spending. By talking about "welfare queens" he let people believe that the poor had themselves to blame and that we didn't have to worry about them.
>
>People don't remember his subtle appeals to racism. They don't remember the magnitude of his scandals and corruption. They don't remember his infantile statements about policy. They don't want to consider that his alzheimers disease may have been well along while he was still in power.
>
>Congressional Democrats are often wimps. They could never match Republican ruthlessness in pursuing genuine scandals and manufacturing phony ones. It is easier to understand a sex scandal than to understand a complex case of embezzlement for the purposes of making mayhem in a country many people could not name. (I recommend Inevitable Revolutions by Walter LeFebre.) A president who says that "government is a part of the problem" is implicitly proving his point with his own acts of corruption and incompetence.
>
>I don't intend to debate any of this, either here or in an off-ramp. I merely wanted to convey the other point of view, which I hadn't seen in this long thread. People are certainly entitled to respond, including those whom I have implicitly insulted with the vehemence of my denunciation. By way of apology to them, I would say that I don't claim to speak the gospel truth anymore than anyone else. You should keep "studying his policy" rather than listening to the natterings of slightly older vfp programmers like me.