There Is No Cat

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Ptooey!

David Weinberger lifts a great cartoon about the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the second worst President of my lifetime. The panel about Reagan being the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with is a close relative of one of the claims that most stuck in my craw back in the day, that Reagan was the kind of guy you would be glad to have at your barbecue.

The only way Ronald Reagan would have been welcome at my barbecue is on the spit.

It sucks to be blessed with such clear memory of those days, but not nearly as much as it must to have the kind of amnesia the media has displayed in recent days.

Posted at 10:41 PM

Comments

You are absoutely right. All he did was eliminate the imminent threat of global nuclear annihilation. Slacker.

Posted by Greg at 1:04 AM, June 16, 2004 [Link]

Is it so hard to fathom that Reagan did good AND bad things? The prevailing sentiment from either side of the aisle is that the one erases the other. Yes his charm, optimism and resolve contributed to a non-violent resolution of the cold war and, arguably, the fall of communism. And yes his naivety or willful ignorance (or both) led to the loss of life, whether it was in the early years of the AIDS epidemic or in covert operations in South America. His faults do not discount his successes, just as his successes do not excuse his faults. There are lessons to be learned from this man’s life, but without perspective, we lose half the picture.

Posted by Patrick at 12:17 AM, June 17, 2004 [Link]

Posted by Patrick at 12:20 AM, June 17, 2004 [Link]