Revising the Reagan Legacy

I’d like to welcome new conservative blogger Bill T from The Bill T Blog to the blogosphere. Not because I like his writing or anything, but merely because he was kind enough to post a comment on my last post; and I’m always a total whore for that kind of thing. And sure, it was somewhat incomprehensible as he seemed to have failed to make an actual point of any kind, but I’ll take what I can get.

I decided to go to Mr. T’s blog to find out more about him, hoping that this might allow me to decipher his comment, and found that his latest post had been related to what I had just posted about, which is probably why he found me. It was titled Is Frank Rich Right About Reagan, and seemed to be saying that Rich was insulting Reagan by suggesting that none of the current GOP nominee aspirants are Reagan-material. Because apparently, it’s an insult to suggest that Reagan’s legacy is over…or something like that. But for as much as he spoke of Reagan's greatness and the great gnashing of liberal teeth it caused, he never actually got around to telling us exactly what that legacy was.

At this point, I’ll just repost the comment I left, as I’ve been too lazy to actually write new blog material:

Wow, for someone who wrote so much about Reagan, you really didn't seem to say a damn thing about the guy. Like how he raised taxes more times than he lowered them. Or how he did little to address the huge deficits he helped create. And how he eventually became quite pragmatic when it came to the Soviets, and how he admitted that he was wrong about them being evil; all to the horror of many of the hardline conservatives running the Whitehouse right now. And let's not forget how he allowed illegal weapons to be sold to Iran or how he repeatedly failed to retaliate against terrorist attacks. I could go on.

In the end, it seems as if you're basking in the glory of a false Reagan. The idea of Reagan seems far more important to you than the actual guy. And should it be remembered that Clinton is often considered more popular than Reagan, both during their presidencies and afterwards? Don't get me wrong, I always liked Reagan and think he was a swell guy (I was a Republican back then). But he's hardly the hardline conservative you guys are now pretending he was.

And to answer your question: No, Romney, Giuliani, and McCain will not be the next Reagan. Those guys are a bunch of deceitful punks and the GOP's future is dark indeed. You can pretend all you want that it's still morning in America, but you're obviously living in a fictional past. But I guess that's really the strongest connection to the Reagan Legacy.

After this, me and Mr. T had quite a bit of back and forth on several of his posts, with me entirely stomping upon his arguments, while he continued to deflect mine with cheap labels and dismissive insinuations. You can click through to read it if you want, though there’s nothing there that I haven’t said before. Here was another of our rousing debates, this time on Bob Geldof, Al Gore, and why liberals shouldn't try to save the world and should just drop out of politics...or something like that.

But the main point remains: The right really doesn’t give a damn about Reagan, beyond their ability to exploit him for their current woes. Bill T said as much, which I found entirely weird; but it was nice to get a bit of honesty out of these people. I had more to write, but I’ve really got to go to bed and it wouldn’t be anything I haven’t written before. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow.

Oddly enough, I really kind of liked reading T’s blog. Sure, I disagreed with just about everything he said and really didn’t like how he couldn’t address any of my points, but besides that, I really did get sort of obsessed with it; to the point that I almost forgot to post this post. I’m telling you, one of these days I’m going to convert me a conservative, and then all you naysaying fuckers will be sorry. It can be done, I’m sure of it.