1 The Gipper was my first CinC. GWB was my last.

2

Long Live the Gipper.

Ron was as real as you get.

Jellybeans.Forever.

3 Reagan lives on in those of us he inspired.  A world he inspired.

4 He won the Cold War and defeated Communism, as Margaret Thatcher said, "without firing a shot".

5 We won the Cold War but then handed the trophy back to the Russians. We did so little to follow up, encourage, and help the Russians become a democracy that they are once again in the hands of the communists. An incredible victory thrown away with both hands. Reagan would be ashamed.

6 Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union, Obama and his friends are bankrupting us. I wish Reagan were alive today.

7 #5 So true.

8 I noticed some comments about reagan on the television this weekend.  Offhanded but subtly mocking.  the kind of small comment that might go over someone's head.  It made me think.  It made me wonder if a lot of people who never paid attention to him are now googling him and thus they know he's a topic of interest.  So they drop a few off handed comments.

9 sometimes I wish Matt drudge and beck would put this kind of stuff up on their sites.  A lot of people should be seeing this speech right about now.  Always wished that drudge would have a little 'moments in history" section where people who haven't seen this speech, can watch it and maybe see what the older folks are seeing.  Especially now since people have been warned against viewing drudge.

10 5 We won the Cold War but then handed the trophy back to the Russians. We did so little to follow up, encourage, and help the Russians become a democracy that they are once again in the hands of the communists. An incredible victory thrown away with both hands. Reagan would be ashamed.
Posted by: ahem at March 10, 2010 02:48 AM (LvZLQ)

Not true. We gave a lot of support (political , financial, and otherwise) to Russia in the 90's. Much of this was done quietly to avoid wounding Russian pride.

Ultimately the Russian people will end up with the government that they are willing to tolerate and no outsider can change this. There's a reason that Russian history is so tragic.

11 President Reagan's Evil Empire Speech, often credited with hastening the end of Soviet totalitarianism, almost didn't happen.

12 Reagan was a great man.

Mistaken in certain respects. But a wonderful, courageous, self-confident leader.

13 Reagan destroyed this country. He put more people out of work, sold out our defense to the Iranians, was rude to the Russians, and had a hairpiece. Clinton blows him away in more ways than one. Not to mention Obama, who is god, if god existed.

14 And he fired the air traffic controllers, busting a union and putting our air defense at risk. He's  responsible for the Russians shooting down a spy airliner, and he killed Khadafi's baby. Some man.

15 14 And he fired the air traffic controllers, busting a union and putting our air defense at risk. He's responsible for the Russians shooting down a spy airliner, and he killed Khadafi's baby. Some man.
Posted by: Another Stupid Typical Fucking Moonbat at March 10, 2010 03:26 AM (FIVyR)

But you're forgetting how he emptied out the mental hospitals and single handedly created the homeless problem. So every time you harvest a hobo thank the Gipper for preserving the herd for future morons.

16

If only he'd have rounded up all the Dems and Rinos in congress and had them hanged, he'd have been perfect.

17 Correct. Me and my buddies would be safely hidden away in rubber room gulags if it wasn;t for Ronnie Raygun. Get it? Raygun? LOL!

18 Anybody know who wrote the 'Evil Empire' speech?

19 Barack Obama. Or John F. Kennedy. Same difference.

20 Reagan's tells a heckler, "Awww, shut up!"  I've seen a longer clip.  The crowd went wild.  Sounded like a live jet engine being sucked into a black hole.  You know, like the crowd at the Beatles Shea stadium concert.  It went on for a long time too.

21

Barry Obama,why do you ask?  Yesss, I. can. give a. speech.  I can talk..  All day long.  Mean anything, well, um uh, no, I don't expect my speechess to mean anything.  It'sss just talk.

22 We tend to forget how many of the elite back then (including even some in the GOP) were invested in the idea of a détente with the Soviet Union, and resigned to a permanent Soviet sphere of influence. So why upset the Bear with a bunch of words in a speech?

History has taught the educated classes like myself to venerate Reagan while at the time we furrowed our brow while James Baker was fraught with concern over the possible upset at the balance of the universe as we knew it then

Go ahead, call me a phony, but I bet you can't call me a phony with a long essay that says so

23 Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were extraordinary, visionary leaders who saw the world as it should be, not as it miserably was. Unfortunately, bold, visionary leaders like Reagan and Thatcher only come along once in a generation if at that.

The great triumph of America has been that bold, visionary leaders have always come along at the right time to set the nation on course to even greater heights. Let us not forget this day and every day henceforth to say a prayer to the Lord God Almighty for another bold, visionary leader to pick up this country and set it back on the path to what it has always been ... a shining city on a hill.

America is the world's only shining beacon of democracy and freedom. Let us commit today to stand up for freedom's way. An America in which its people lose their freedoms, is not America anymore.  

24

@14: "And he fired the air traffic controllers, busting a union and putting our air defense at risk."

Oddly enough, it was Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers that convinced the Russians that he was someone to be feared.  The Soviets figured that he would cave to the union.  When he didn't, they realized that he was something different than they were used to in a Western leader.

25 1 The Gipper was my first CinC. GWB was my last.

Posted by: baldilocks at March 10, 2010 02:31 AM (XXHXQ)

Ditto for me. My last Naval Reserve drill was the month after Clinton got elected. My enlistment was up and I was out. Dec 1984-Dec 1993 EM2 USNR.

26 1993 is 1992 ...sheesh, that was a long time ago. Senility

27 I voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate most years, including the Reagan years. These were not blind votes, but an acknowledgement that the state I lived in was overwhelmingly going for a given candidate. This provides a certain freedom to vote your conscience without repercussions. Had Reagan been a 'toss-up' candidate in my state, my vote would have been for him. In retrospect, Reagan was a great President. Ron Paul would never get my vote, as he is a certified loon in foreign affairs.
 
There is one way that RP could get my vote -- if it was him or Teh Won. As an aside, many Tea Party folks have finally come around to the libertarian view of limited government, but always with a strong national defense component.

28

He hand wrote a great deal - it shows in his grasp of the words. In this clip you can see him look down to his notes every once in a while, but for long long passages he is speaking without looking down. He knew his stuff.

Barry - compare and contrast.....

29 Geez.  And now Friedman has said in today's NYT that President Bush "was always" right about the need and desire for democracy in Iraq.

Cats and dogs sleeping together...

30 This guy Reagan should leave the room and let the adults discuss detente.  He'll never be a serious candidate, unless we say so.

31 Andrew Sullivan said that?

32

If only he'd have rounded up all the Dems and Rinos in congress and had them hanged, he'd have been perfect.

After years of complaints about flocks of vultures vomiting onto playgrounds and houses, Greeneville is trying a novel approach to scare off the birds.

Public works crews then hung some of the dead birds from the trees at the suggestion of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee. 

It may be a strange sight, but Cannon says it has worked

There may be an idea about cleaning up Congress in there but I'm not sure.

33 *sigh*

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

34 We miss you Ronnie.  May your memory live forever in glory.

35 He included the word "evil" in his speech, in part, because he knew that his audience that day was familiar with the concept, acknowledged the presence of Evil in the world, and was not ashamed to say so. 

The concept of evil embarasses the knowledgable ubereducated elites.  The dumb Christians, on the other hand, get it and got it.  Reagan knew that. The national press was appalled.  The common man cheered.

36 Thats a good way to start my day.
Reagan may be zombie, but he's not forgotten.

37 That deficit spending genie never got put back in the bottle ... and we are reaping the consequences today.

But Reagan made great speeches and sound points.

38

In the 1980s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil Ronald Reagan was.

In the 1990s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil George W. Bush was.

In the 2000s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil Sarah Palin was.

And people wonder why I stopped watching television.

39 Fox News Alert: Actot Cory Haim dead at age 38. Appears accidental. story developing.

40

In the 1980s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil Ronald Reagan was.

In the 1990s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil George W. Bush was.

In the 2000s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil Sarah Palin was.

In the 2010s you couldn't turn on the TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how wonderful and dreamy Obama is.

FTFY

41

"Liberal" reaction to the phrase "evil empire" tells you a lot more about them than it does about Reagan or the Cold War. Even today members of the Hive use the phrase "evil empire" derisively or satirically, as they once used "Commie prevert" from DR. STRANGELOVE. It's a way of showing their sophistication, versus Reagan's simple-mindedness and lack of "nuance." But why was the phrase "evil empire" so silly? Clearly the Soviet Union was an empire (ask the Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, etc.); and clearly, to anyone who had even a modicum of mild affection for liberty, evil.  Yet calling it just what it was--i.e., an evil empire--was considered the height of Reagan foolishness. Yet who looks foolish now?

 

 

42

One more:

In the 1970s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil and the spawn of Satan Nixon was and how Ford was a bumbling uncoordinated idiot and how silent they were on the actual stupidity of Carter.

43 Not true. We gave a lot of support (political , financial, and otherwise) to Russia in the 90's. Much of this was done quietly to avoid wounding Russian pride.

Posted by: Mætenloch at March 10, 2010 03:00 AM (oYxkV)

We sure did and the result has been that the Russians came to the conclusion that we're a bunch of pussies. The same thing happens with the Communist Chinese. The State Dept. gets their analysis wrong, assumes that everyone else around the world lives by the idea of "quid pro quo" -- that is, that if we are solicitous towards others, they will return the favor. So when we propose something they don't like, they have a temper tantrum, we take the tantrum seriously and over-compensate with our apologies and generosity and they take that as an invitations to try to get more out of us.

The Reagan-esque notion of "Peace Through Strength" -- twist the other guy's arm until he cries "Uncle!" then make the deal -- has been lost.

44

The beauty of R.R. wasn't so much how conservative he was but his skill in getting things done in the face of a hostile environment.

Even with a Democrat congress oppossing him on everything he tried to do he was able to work around them and communicate with the people. No he didn't get everything done and he signed into law a few things that the Dems wanted that conservatives hate but we must remember, you can not veto everything.

Bush's biggest problem was that he didn't veto anything.

45 45

One more:

In the 1970s you couldn't turn on TV without every reporter, comedian, actor, singer, author, commentator and protest crowd telling you how stupid, crazy and evil and the spawn of Satan Nixon was and how Ford was a bumbling uncoordinated idiot and how silent they were on the actual stupidity of Carter.

Posted by: Vic

Chevy Chase was the Tiny Fey of his day, wasn't he?

46

But you're forgetting how he emptied out the mental hospitals and single handedly created the homeless problem....

This is a myth created by the liberals. If anyone group is responsible for empting the mental hospitals it is the ACLU who took it to court and had them turn loose the patients.

 

47

Chevy Chase was the Tiny Fey of his day, wasn't he?

I never thought either one of them was funny.

48 Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were extraordinary, visionary leaders who saw the world as it should be, not as it miserably was. Unfortunately, bold, visionary leaders like Reagan and Thatcher only come along once in a generation if at that.

~Jon

Reagan was the "Great Communicator" and arrived just in the nick of time.

That said, his decampment from Beirut after the Marine Barracks Bombing set the stage for 9/11.

Reagan never did win the Cold War, it still goes on and we are losing it.

Thatcher's greatest longest lasting vision was to start the meme that coal produced a greenhouse gas called CO2 that was warming up the atmosphere to dangerous levels and we should all switch to nuclear power to mitigate the problem.(she started this meme to break the Communist led British Coalminers Union)

Somehow the UKs CND(Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament) found themselves out of a job after many in the West imagined wrongly that we had won the Cold War and the CND, having a ready made protest machine, turned from Red to Green and started to push Thatcher's Global Warming meme in a way that prevented nuclear power plants from being built but still attempted to shut down coal powered and other hydrocarbon fueled power plants.

The rest is history, or at least myth.

49

Egads.  I miss the Gipper more every day.  Here's a link to I Own the World and their stellar find in this Ronaldus Magnus video.  It's a scream, and more proof that Reagan was an all-round likeable guy.

http://tinyurl.com/y86amyj

 

 

50 I was living in USSR in this time. I  remember anger and fear in USSR press and on TV.  PRAVDA print article about crazy american president and  about american "progressives" supporting USSR.

51 Did anyone have Corey Haim in the Celebrity Death Pool?

52

and started to push Thatcher's Global Warming ....

Yes Thatcher is the one who pushed the AGW fraud.  It was Reagan's idea to create the UN IPCC Panel where international scientists would show what a cray thing the AGW myth was. At the time all real atmospheric scientists though the entire thing was ludicrous. Reagan though the panel would shut her up.  He was tired of hearing about it at the G-8 conferences.

As it turned out the creation of the IPCC coincided with the third world communists taking over the U.N. and the panel became stacked with politics instead of science. By the time the final report was issued Clinton was in office and he sent Al Bore to sign the Kyoto accords.  The Senate looked over those accords and ruled 98-0 that they would not even take them up, much less pass them.

When Bush won in 2000 the communist wing of the Dem Party decided that it was Bush's fault that these accords were never made law in the U.S. and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now we are finally finding out the level of fraud that was used to justify the scam.

 

53 I used to have a CD of Reagan and Churchill speeches. Need to get it updated into the ipod world.

54 David Brooks would've been appalled at such simplistic, inflammatory rhetoric.  And I bet Reagan never name-dropped Niebuhr.

55 Corey Haim opposed Reagan's policies.  Which is why he is now dead. 

56 Reagan's withdrawel from Lebanon didn't lead to 9/11 but it did lead to the awful situation in Lebanon today with it's people being held in thrall by murderous Hezbollah and Syrian proxies...

57 I wish that the muslims were still fighting the evill empire

58

Reagan's withdrawel from Lebanon didn't lead to 9/11 but it did lead to the awful situation in Lebanon today with it's people being held in thrall by murderous Hezbollah and Syrian proxies...

At the time he had a choice, go to all out war with Syria and Iran or withdraw. With a Democrap congress who wouldn't support any kind of military option he didn't have much choice. Syria and Iran knew this and so did the young OBL who said the U.S. was a paper tiger.

59 The great thing about Reagan was that he was light skinned and didn't speak with a negro dialect.

60

'Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.'- Ronald Reagan

I've always felt he said that to tweak the Left.  He knew it'd get out. 

BTW - one Leftist derisive name for him was Ronald Rayguns.  They'd string out the latter.

 

61

the theme of Walter Russel Meads "God and Gold" makes some interesting historical connections to Reagan's speech.  In esssence, Oliver Cromwell gave the same speech, though much more blunt, 3 centuries before...

 

--

More than 300 years ago, Oliver Cromwell summoned the English to a war against Catholic Spain using arguments we still hear today. Who are our enemies, Cromwell asked in 1656. His answer: the league of evil men throughout the earth. And why do they hate us? Because the evil that is in them sees and hates the good that we do here in England. Or in Cromwell?s own words, ?through that enmity that is in him against all that is of God, that is in you?? What are we fighting for? The future of liberty all over the world. Why will we triumph? Because God is on our side.

These are essentially the arguments of Ronald Reagan?s famous "evil empire" speech; they are the arguments that Tony Blair and George W. Bush made after 9/11. They are the arguments Churchill and Roosevelt made in World War II, the arguments Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson made in World War I, the arguments that British ministers and intellectuals made during the wars against Napoleon, the Jacobins, and against Louis XIV.

This isn?t just rhetoric. God and Gold chronicles the centuries-long war between the Anglo-Americans and their enemies and argues for the importance of understanding the cultural, religious, and financial roots of the English-speaking peoples because they form the foundation of America?s global position. Today we face a new kind of enemy. With American society divided over the nature of the threat and even in some quarters the existence of the threat it is more important than ever to understand what makes America strong, why others hate us, and what are the qualities that have enabled the Americans and the British to prevail in the contests that shaped our world.

62

A genocidal asshole like Cromwell talking about evil men. That's a laugh

63 I'm surprised no one has linked this yet.

64

Cromwell was about the most purely evil leader in the Anglosphere's history. The best comparison is with Lenin.

65 loan issues?????

66

We won the Cold War but then handed the trophy back to the Russians. We did so little to follow up, encourage, and help the Russians become a democracy that they are once again in the hands of the communists. An incredible victory thrown away with both hands. Reagan would be ashamed.

Actually, I think Russia has reverted to Tsarism (Czarism). Putin is much more supportive of a market economy than the Obamunists.

67

What I remember vividly from the 1980s were

(1) the nuclear freeze appease and surrender dupes, and 

(2) the Sandinista symp-dupes (I went to a high school with "Catholic" high school teachers who actually volunteered down there summers, probably molesting boys in good "Liberation Theology" fashion).

 

68

#46, the fact that the State Department is several generations of Communist and "trans-national progressive" infiltrated doesn't help.

If I achieved the Presidency, or a temporary military dictator position, having the entire State Department above the level of "building janitors and groundskeepers" exiled or executed seems like an excellent place to start.

69 And why will we never name the epicenter of Islamic evil, the Saudis, for what they are? Because we owe them money and need to buy their oil.

70

"At least that's what the Irish think [about Cromwell]."

Gee, I can't imagine why those bog-trotters got such a negative opinion of the guy. After all, he treated them so nicely.

71

At least that's what the Irish think.  Did you know Zimriel that Cromwell allowed Jews to settle in England over the objections of Parliment?

Posted by: polynikes at March 10, 2010 11:41 AM (m2CN7)

Well you slaughter several thousand of them, sell more into slavery, confiscate their land and you tend to get a bad reputation.

72

"At the time he had a choice, go to all out war with Syria and Iran or withdraw. With a Democrap congress who wouldn't support any kind of military option he didn't have much choice. Syria and Iran knew this and so did the young OBL who said the U.S. was a paper tiger."

Or as an alternative to all out war, he could have used Special Forces-types to hunt down all the SOB's responsible, like Israel after the Munich Massacre. In any event, you can't tell me, that if Reagan was such a great orator, he couldn't get win the support of the American people to go after those who murdered hundreds of our own in cold blood. 

If he couldn't do that, he wasn't a leader.  He had a choice, and he turned tail and ran, he could have done a number of things other than that. Can't blame that on the Democrats.  And as a result, Hezbollah and Iran are still a threatening force today.

73 I do remember that speech, and I remember Reagan was vilified for it in the press. The media portrayed him as a dangerous, crazy old man. The Palinization of good conservatives started long ago.

74

Reagan's biographer was asking Gorbachev through a translator about what kind of man Reagan was.  The translater used a word that was hard to understand in the context, something along the line of honor or greatness, whatever.  The biographer asked the translator to explain further.  As the translater tried to explain, Gorbachev was listening intently.  Then Gorbachev interrupted and said one word, "Kalibur."

The English word and the Russian word are essentially the same.

 

75 I remember the howls of outrage over this speech.  There was an honest to god belief that this speech was the precursor to Reagan starting a nuclear war.  One of the nuns who taught at my high school described Reagan as a 'wicked man' who was going to destroy the world. 

What I find infuriating is the number of people who claim that this was not so and that they backed Reagan's words.  That is total bullshit.  I was there, and the eidtorial pages and tv talking heads almost uniformly condemned the president

76

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