Appreciate the Man
“A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”
Then again, when I alluded that to my Republican sister once, she pointed out that Reagan was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, sooo…
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“Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us realize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”
There’s a number of ways to view that quotation. #1: Reagan moved from alluding to John Wayne movies to alluding to science fiction movies. #2: Reagan was telegraphing a message about he knows that we do not know. “People say that the aliens are going to come one day to save us. While I say, the aliens are here and they’re here to eat us!” #3: Straight-forward inspirational words to put our world conflicts into perspective.
Or perhaps a mixture of the three…
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What was this one all about?
I hear that that one was Pat Buchannan’s idea…
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Davis A. Stockman claimed this, in a book I’ve not read by way of a blog entry excerpt:
Incredibly, Weinberger had also brought with him a blown-up cartoon. It showed three soldiers. One was a pygmy who carried now rifle. He represented the Carter budget. The second was a four-eyed whimp who looked like Woody Allen, carrying a tiny rifle. That was – me? – the OMB defense budget. Finally, there was GI Joe himself, 190 pounds of fighting man, all decked out in helmet and flak jacket and pointing an M-60 machine gun menacingly at – me again? This imposing warrior represented, yes, the Department of Defense budget plan.
It was so intellectually disreputable, so demeaning, that I could hardly bring myself to believe that a Harvard-educated cabinet officer could have brought this to the President of the United States. Did he think the White House was on Sesame Street?
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Oh, and remember when the Bushes tried to kill Reagan?
Okay. Never mind that last one.