travelah - 06 July 2009 12:41 PM

I have never regarded Clinton as a left wing socialist.

He wasn’t. He was slightly—very slightly—to the left of center in terms of his public ideology. And by the end of his time in office, he may as well have been a Republican, given how many concessions he gave to the right to try and take some of the heat off his personal troubles. It infuriates me that so many Dems idolize him and his presidency.

Steve Shanafelt - 06 July 2009 12:35 PM

Yeah, it’s really hard to paint Reagan as a conservative in any literal sense of the word. Unless “conservative” means basically “popular Republican.”

By which I mean: There’s nothing conservative about using drug money to finance illegal wars, or trading arms for hostages, causing a massive recession in the early 1980s (with a HIGHER unemployment rate than we’ve got now, in fact, maxing at 10.8%) due to faulty supply-side economics thinking that was anything but conservative (in the literal sense of the word), holding fast to policies that directly created the Savings & Loan scandals (also anything but conservative economics), all but creating the 1987 stock-market crash through intentional deregulation, and more than quadrupling the national debt ($700 billion to $3 trillion, again, hardly in line with anything easily characterized as conservative). And that’s just off the top of my head.

I’d argue that America hasn’t had a truly conservative president in quite some time—maybe Ike was the last one—and that most of the people wearing the “conservative” label pin are anything but. Strictly speaking, Ron Paul is the only person who even ran last time that even had a tinge of actual conservative ideology to him.

I don’t think I’ve read such a pile of hogwash in quite some time.
1. Iran-Contra has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservatism unless you are going to equate the Gulf of Tonkin incident as denying Johnson’s liberalism.
2. The recession in 1982 was the result of pulling the trigger on the Carter years which were FAR worse than anything seen since including the current Democrat mess we are in. Supply Side economics had not yet begun to kick in.
3. The 1987 market “crash” was the result of an auto-trade system that had nothing to do intentional deregulation. In fact it spurred tighter controls to restrict auto-trades and the stock market soared until 9-11 kicked it in the shins.
4. The savings and loan issues ???? how in hell do you tie this to Reagan conservative policies??? Please share more.
5. Debt increased at a much lower rate than GDP. In fact, tax cuts produced nothing but economic growth and increased government revenues.

Leave it to a socialist to muddy the water.

You dont think trading arms for drugs in order to meddle in another nation’s affairs is contrary to a Conservative ideology?

4. The savings and loan issues ???? how in hell do you tie this to Reagan conservative policies??? Please share more.

from the wiki: (yes, i know you dont believe anything on wiki)

Reagan’s “elimination of loopholes” in the tax code included the elimination of the “passive loss” provisions that subsidized rental housing. Because this was removed retroactively, it bankrupted many real estate developments made with this tax break as a premise. This with some other “deregulation” policies ultimately led to the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history: The Savings and Loan crisis. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$150 billion, about $125 billion of which was consequently and directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.  An indication of this scandal’s size, Martin Mayer wrote at the time, “The theft from the taxpayer by the community that fattened on the growth of the savings and loan (S&L) industry in the 1980s is the worst public scandal in American history. Teapot Dome in the Harding administration and the Credit Mobilier in the times of Ulysses S. Grant have been taken as the ultimate horror stories of capitalist democracy gone to seed. Measuring by money, [or] by the misallocation of national resources…the S&L outrage makes Teapot Dome and Credit Mobilier seem minor episodes.” [15]  John Kenneth Galbraith called it “the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time.”[16]

Reagan should have been impeached but due to his glib tongue he built a remarkable following among Americans over fond of their Hollywood heroes.

Should Reagan have been impeached? Yes. He was, up to the time he left office, the worst crook to ever inhabit the White House. He sold arms to the Iranians to raise money to fund the Contras—both impeachable offenses. He then sold arms to the Iraqis. He sent George Bush to Teheran before the 1980 election to convince them to hold the US hostages until after the election, using the promise of arms sales to convince them to do it. (This is called the October Surprise.) He listened to economic idiots like Jude Wanniski and Grover Norquist in formulating his first tax cut. Yes, it was a fine tax cut…but it ruined the economy. He had to sign the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is the biggest tax increase ever signed by a president. And to top it all off, you remember the Beirut Marine Barracks bombing, that killed 273 patriotic Marines? It wouldn’t have happened if Reagan would have listened to the military. The Marines told Reagan it wasn’t safe to house Marines in Lebanon, where bombings were a daily occurrence. Reagan wanted to show the flag, so he had the Marines live in a building on Lebanese soil instead of on a troop ship like the Marines wanted. Result: a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives into the barracks and killed 273 men in their beds.

Why wasn’t Reagan impeached? He had a GREAT PR arm. Everyone thought Reagan was a wonderful man who loved his country and could do no wrong. Reagan may have loved his country, but he should have been sent to love it from the inside of a prison cell.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_wasn’t_Ronald_Reagan_impeached

travelah - 06 July 2009 12:51 PM

I don’t think I’ve read such a pile of hogwash in quite some time.

1. Iran-Contra has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservatism unless you are going to equate the Gulf of Tonkin incident as denying Johnson’s liberalism.

So, from your point of view it’s a “conservative” thing to use illegal, unregulated money from clearly illegal business deals to fund an illegal war? There’s nothing conservative about it. It’s criminal, and “liberal” in the sense that the conservative way to accomplish the same thing would be to do it, I don’t know, legally.

2. The recession in 1982 was the result of pulling the trigger on the Carter years which were FAR worse than anything seen since including the current Democrat mess we are in. Supply Side economics had not yet begun to kick in.

Rubbish. That was three years into Reagan’s term, and a direct result of his policies.

3. The 1987 market “crash” was the result of an auto-trade system that had nothing to do intentional deregulation. In fact it spurred tighter controls to restrict auto-trades and the stock market soared until 9-11 kicked it in the shins.

Also rubbish. It had everything to do with deregulation and under-regulation—both hallmarks of Reagan’s polices—and I’d love to hear a serious argument otherwise.

4. The savings and loan issues ???? how in hell do you tie this to Reagan conservative policies??? Please share more.

Learn some history. This is hardly a revelation. I mean, ANY serious, non-partisan examination of the actual events will tie it directly to Reagan’s policies and direct support of deregulation. It’s almost the same situation as Bush The Recent’s deregulation fiasco leading to yet another housing bubble, but with slightly different effects.

5. Debt increased at a much lower rate than GDP. In fact, tax cuts produced nothing but economic growth and increased government revenues.

It did nothing of the sort. I’m not sure where you’ve even gotten the idea that real economic growth happened. Various price bubbles happened, I guess, but real economic growth sucked wind until the end of the recession that started on “Black Monday” in 1987, right in the prime of Reagan’s second term, and lasted more-or-less until Clinton took office. But believe whatever you like.

Leave it to a socialist to muddy the water.

... with those annoying “facts” he keeps using.

... with those annoying “facts” he keeps using.

Palin Cuts Loose!

The pig makes a good point.

Chatting today on Hardball, I heard some speculate that she is finished with politics and probably would have been far happier if she had turned down the offer from the McCain campaign.  But, the peculation ranged from she’s washed up to she certainly has time to ready herself for 2012.
It was pointed out that she has faced near gridlock in the state’s legislature and reasoned, wisely,that nothing will get done for the state with her there as a distraction.

Also mentioned is her dislike for Fairbanks which, I suspect, was illustrated in her many days at her real home.  I lean toward her family being the real cause. Am I being too kind?  I don’t know, just makes sense while nothing else does to me.

Levi Johnston says Palin quit so she could go after the money ...

Levi Johnston told reporters Thursday night that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin decided to resign from office for the money.

Johnston claimed that in December he heard Palin talking about “how nice it would be to take some of this money people have been offering us and just run with it, and saying forget everything else.”

Johnston, the former fiancé of the governor’s daughter, said the offers Palin was referring to came from “books, talk shows, whatever, things like that.”

The 19-year-old father of the governor’s grandchild said he believed the reasons Palin listed for her resignation made up part of the reason, but were not the deciding factors.

“I’ve seen how stressful this job was for her and she came home late at night and things like that,” he said. But Johnston added, “I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars.”

“It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills,” Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton responded.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24767.html

Levi Johnston should run for office.

palin is calculating and opportunistic if she is anything….

had she really cared more about the people in alaska she would have turned down the vp nod, because she really doesn’t have the credentials or the experience ... she saw an opportunity to short cut to national recognition and she took it…. now she sees that her legacy is screwed in her first term as gov and won’t play in the future ...f she needs to cut and run now….the money is also not going to get any better if she ends up being the failed gov of alaska .... who knows there may still be another skeleton in the closet yet to come out ....

isnt the american way to turn your 15 min into a fortune

waita minute, ‘former’ fiance? they didnt get married? when did i miss that? does this mean the palin clan had a child out of wedlock?

The (PFKaP) - 10 July 2009 03:50 PM

waita minute, ‘former’ fiance? they didnt get married? when did i miss that? does this mean the palin clan had a child out of wedlock?

Totally. Single teen mother. Meanwhile, Levi is going after modeling jobs in L.A.

i cant believe i missed that.

family values, indeed.

good for them, btw.

It infuriates me that so many Dems idolize him and his presidency.

I saw Bill when he was in town..he talked nonstop for 2 and half hours..unbelievable..Once in a while his slick Willy self would slip out and it was disappointing…

I think the reason why people think back on the Clinton years as golden (I mean didn’t we all dig the fact he was getting hummers in the Oval Room) was the 8 bleak years that followed..I mean watching a president we all were embarrassed by blunder through speeches a 7th grader could read better was depressing.. At least Willy could give a pretty good speech..he could cry on cue..

Overall I like Bill…Abraham Lincoln he wasn’t..