"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism"
Here's a quote from the same interview moments later.
"I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it has to do with the times. I think we are in one of those fundamentally different times right now were people think that things, the way they are going, just aren't working."
It's amazing what a little editing can do.
A candidate can be discussing how a political campaign can come to be representative of ideas and ideals and offer a profound shift, different candidates ...different ideals. He can be discussing how the political culture and climate is calling for a certain kind of response -and the next minute, with a little prudent editing ...POOF: "So Obama is a closet Reaganite! Gee whiz! Isn't that a bad thing to say in the middle of the Democratic primary season?"
This is what they call D-I-S-T-O-R-T-I-O-N
Though I'm not an insider with the campaign, I will tell you what I THINK Obama was trying to get across. The country is at a place of crucial decision right now. We are at the exhausted end of an era (hopefully) and where we go next is a central question. The two examples he gave, and equated, might be something of a clue. Kennedy came along after eight years of Ike and Nixon and Cold War anxiety. Obviously there was more of that anxiety to come, but Kennedy reinvigorated the nation with a sense of purpose and mission.
Reagan came along and found the nation in a similarly exhausted and anxious place. If you'll recall the incumbent president described our condition as a "malaise". Like his methods or not (and I most certainly don't) Reagan sold the country on a renewed sense of itself as "freedom's great shining light on a hill" or some other such rhetoric. That was the mirror, what happened in the smoke is another story.
The country did undergo a profound change, not necessarily for the better on many counts, but it changed. I think the common theme Obama was trying to describe was that when the country hits these points of exhausted anxiety and "malaise," we like to harken back to core ideals and reach for larger paradigmatic change.
Ronald Reagan sold a bit more than he delivered in my estimation. There was promise Kennedy never got to deliver. With Obama, just maybe there's hope.
You folks are really serious when you say that some Reagan, Kennedy or whoever ' changed the way'? You really believe that a two- bit actor or a compulsive womanizer or a peanut farmer or... now some guy from IL with a funny name can ' fundamentally change the way'? Oh, boy.
There was no change. Just Reagan was by the powers of the moment and those powers used their influence to create that Defense bubble they wanted. Reagan was an idiot and from him started the whole line of idiots and sellouts in the high power.
It does not matter what Barack Obama says. He is a nice guy. But nothing else. Stop talking about buying and selling. It all happens in the malls and on the MSM pages. In reality it is TAKING OR GIVING.
Who took what and who gave what is a big deal.
by
Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 252 diaries, 3605 comments)
on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 7:03:12 AM
I knew Ronald Reagan and was an advisor during the Libyan conflict. He knew he did not know it all. He hired the right people in the field and then listened to them.
Reagan was a great president because we had great people in federal service during his term of office and he knew that he should listen to them.
by
Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 797 comments)
on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 1:22:15 PM
the good people advising him or the good people telling him what to do?
I am not sure about Lybian conflict ( which one?) but how about such little thing as Grenada? Whose advice was that? And we all know that Reagan was a pathological reactionary: he had a very interesting past from the McCarthy period 'hunting commies' within the actor's guild. The boosting of the defense budget let not only to waste but to anomaly- the bubble which we still partly have. Morover, his 'war on drugs'- whose advice was that?
But there is more: being himself a total phony Reagan hated real professionals. His pogrom over the the air-controllers revealed an attack on the highly paid and highly trained professionals which was the actual goal of the GOP leadership. They understood very well that in the new era the parasitic goons who ruled supreme had to move aside to let the real professsionals to power to solve real problems like climaate issues, energy, food, communications. Oh yes, and if the professionals would have taken power the diversity would have flourished because real work does not discriminate. That is why a Reagan- brake was used and he was an ideal candidate for that because as he was a mediocre actor he was even less a politician. Reagan was the reason we have the least professional administration now in which with the exception of Bernanke all others are political goons or spooks. What a legacy! Look at their faces, those who benefited and you will see.
by
Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 252 diaries, 3605 comments)
on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 2:13:30 PM
This morning's (Sunday, January 20) edition of the Chicago Sun-Times devoted the entire first three pages of their birdcage liner to a slander of Obama by playing up his linkswith the indicted Chicago businessman and wheeler-dealer, Tony Rezco. None of the information they provide is news, having been previously published, with the exeption of an admission in the third paragraph of the story, stating that it is based on a single paragraph from a 78 page document discussing the Rezco allegations. This is what they stretched into their first three pages.
In the second paragraph of the story is the editorial board's ass covering attempt where they own up to the fact that Obama is not accused of wrongdoing, and that there is no evidence that Obama had any knowledge that campaign contributions from Rezco or his associates might be questionable. It was also necessary for them to admit that Obama gave $44,000.00 of the contributions to charity when he learned that there may be a problem with them.
The rest of the article was a sleazy hit job full of innuendo and clearly designed for character assassination. I assume that this is the rag's endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the February 5 Democratic primary election.
We get all of this from a newspaper which in seven years of fraud crime and treason from the Bush administration failed to evince even a passing interest in their lack of public morality, indeed, I wouldn't be surprised to find that they haven't devoted as much column space to Bush/Cheney crimes as they did to their Obama smear in this single edition.
It also shows how a corporatist organization is not likely to change their stripes. A few months ago, the Sun-Times editorial board gave great play to their claim that they were adopting a "progressive" editorial policy. I would just like to point out that adopting a progressive editorial policy does not mean that one starts their goose stepping with the left leg instead of the right.
The corporatist mentality that approves these sorts of dirty tricks is something that needs to be excised from the body politic before we can restore liberty and constitutional government to this republic.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 1301 comments)
on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 8:28:02 AM
I would love see a man of intergrity, solid charcter and of a race other than white in the White House.
However, I would also love to see someone who is NOT for a huge military, as candidate Obama seems to advocate from the statements I heard in the Dem debates. The defense industry must love this stuff, since all the frontrunners (except MAYBE Edwards) now are pro-defense and don't advocate a fundamental change in the military industrial corpstream media setup that has such a strangle hold on us all in this sinking economy and our daily lives. When Obama shows me some hope for a REALLY fundamental change, I would consider voting for him! It would certainly be refreshing change from Hillary's corporate/military status quo crap.
by
Papawhale (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 63 comments)
on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 10:09:20 AM
When Mr. Obama inadvertently praised Ronald Reagan, a statesman whose positions he obviously misunderstood, and by reference, indicated there was some kinship, for he too, was a charismatic catalyst-candidate, offering a beleaguered public a shiny new self-image, I fear Mr. O revealed some of his own shortcomings: little experience, murky associations, and image without substance.
Reagan claimed to be a Republican in the tradition of small government and fiscal responsibility, yet he vastly expanded federal power (ie.against labor unions), multiplied the nation's military ambitions (with the "evil empire" concept and the preliminary "star wars" missile defense grid), all besides taking cheap shots at environmentalists and poor single moms on welfare, and ultimately multiplying the national debt, rather than reducing it. The concept of "trickle-down" economics has gotten profoundly worse, with the wealthiest few controlling politics, the media, and the elections themselves.
Obama has reasonably likened himself to Reagan in that his own groundswell of support reflects the mood of the nation, or at least a sizeable proportion of thinking citizens, who see hope reflected in him, his candidacy, and the policies they think he espouses. Sadly, the image again fails to fit the job description, with the claim of change no more significant than Reagan's, perhaps here again even indicating a similar worsening, if that were even possible.
Take, for example, the position of being long involved with peaceful solutions to international incidents, "speaking out" against the Iraq war. My perception of Obama's critique of the war in Iraqis that he challenged its tactical execution, actually requiring MORE troops, 100,000 more now projected to be added to the armed services, on the Illinois Senator's election. There is also a much too cozy relationship Obama enjoys with the Nuclear industry, overtly bold talk of all destructive military options he would access in a crisis, hints of illegal incursions into Pakistan, or escalations in Afghanistan, maybe further imperial dreams on all continents. With all that campaign rhetoric, it is surprising that the subcommittee Obama heads as a Senator dealing with the European community has yet to be convened. Rather than superficial stump speeches, Obama should and could meet with his committee and build up his legislative portfolio, his experience as a consensus-builder, a leader capable of listening.
Not too dissimilar to Reagan's demonization of the 1980's"welfare queen", is Obama's idea that American blacks have already achieved 90% of their full-fledged civil liberties, or his persistent failure to address the decades of police torture of black inmates under Burge and Daly in his home-city of Chicago. His dark skin inspires a false hope that his campaign will bring a consciousness of the evils of racial profiling, bigotry, and discrimination, but the candidate's elitist stands belie this perception. He is the only major Democrat to vote to restrict aid to AIDS treatment and prevention funding in Africa, and his economic views are more like Reagan's than W.E.B. DuBois.
It is unkind that the media has latched on to this ill-thought musing of Mr. Obama, even twisting it beyond what the candidate meant to impart. But what were the "excesses" this young politician referred to that Reagan was perceived to remedy? The ongoing warmongering in VietNam that squandered the New Deal and Great Society, a sacred cow of both major parties? Reagan was all for that! The horrific covert wars in the Western Hemisphere during the 80's are a national disgrace. The excessive eking out of privilege for the corporate elite? Certainly that was a pet project, as Reagan himself said "the rich aren't rich enough, the poor aren't poor enough!" Or was the "excess" Obama describes the free-speaking 70's activism that sought to exclude religion from government, or to protect such disobedient acts as sit-ins and flag-burning, or demanded housing and healthcare, not to mention equal entitlement to public education? Or is "excess" the very well-publicized fraud of an overextended "welfare state" in which parasitic citizens and other ("illegal") beings leech the nation's wealth, a story which is a pernicious lie and which has crept into popular consciousness with the disappearance of non-commercial media and civic education.
Despite the groundswell of progressive support he enjoys, is Obama terrified of the "L" word, and why is he accepting the "loser" connotation it picked up during Reagan's reign? What exactly did Reagan's presidency teach this candidate, or Kennedy's presidency twenty some years earlier? And finally, how does this instruct us about the persona of this ephemeral human being, with all of his complex and contradictory characteristics?
by
ladyguru (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 29 comments)
on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 4:14:59 PM
I think it's a little disingenuous to lament the misinterpretations of Obama's comments and to write at length flogging them in the same move. Obama wasn't praising or burying Reagan and his policies. He was describing the political and cultural climate that gave rise to the Reagan Reaction. He was pointing out that the times we're living in are calling for that same larger kind of response that Reagan and Kennedy each represented.
We don't need more effectively studied foreign policy of a slightly different nuance. We don't need a factional democracy where whichever coalition elbows out the other for a narrow "victory" considers its accountability moment behind it. We need to retool the entire mechanism of government and re-examine the divisive dialogue (or lack thereof) in our culture as a whole.
There's a place beyond that divide where Obama can muse about the Reagan message without being tarred and feathered for impure thought. (It's the same kind of space where Senator Clinton can reminisce about Barry Goldwater.)
We need an undertanding of the economy that doesn't see opportunity and justice as opposed concepts. We need a foreign policy that sees principle and effectiveness as complimentary traits, diplomacy and determination as co-existing qualities. We need our national debate premised on refined consensus rather than strategic triangulation.
These are the things Obama is trying to make his campaign about.
Why does that have to be so hard?
by
Tom Driscoll (32 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 15 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 10:07:45 AM
7 comments
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