Worst vice president of all time

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Reagan was already a dim person even before he had Alzheimer, so it's not a surprise it was diagnosed so late. He has the early stages of the disease in his second term; seen enough footage that points in that direction.

That's pretty incredible that you can diagnose a man's illness by watching him on TV for a few hours.

Are you sure you're not a medical doctor in addition to a physics student?

Originally posted by utherpendragon
This open for discussion,Is it to early to give it to Joe (swine flu) Biden? Maybe Al (i created the internet)Gore? Or perhaps Dan (potato,potatoe)Quayle?

Spiro Agnew.

Originally posted by utherpendragon
This open for discussion,Is it to early to give it to Joe (swine flu) Biden? Maybe Al (i created the internet)Gore? Or perhaps Dan (potato,potatoe)Quayle?

I would add Dick (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) Cheney to that list. I think the jury is still out on Biden considering he's only been in office for a short time.😏

Originally posted by sh76
That's pretty incredible that you can diagnose a man's illness by watching him on TV for a few hours.

Are you sure you're not a medical doctor in addition to a physics student?

Well, if it makes you feel better you can just call the pre-1994 Reagan "forgetful".

I disliked, distrusted, and disagreed with Ronald Reagan. I still feel that way.

But I do not underestimate him, nor try to make myself feel superior by impugning his intelligence, his presence of mind, nor belittling his undoubted achievements.

He was a very capable man and had a firm grasp on certain management methods. As a result, he was far more successful an executive than Carter. More's the pity, for despite what appears here as praise, I find it tragic that so talented and capable a manager and leader was so woefully misguided and willfully in service to the American plutocracy.

He did so much to set us on the course that resulted in our present economic difficulties.

As time goes by it is increasingly apparent that Ronald Reagan was a more formidable leader than he was given credit for during his presidency. Reagan always left an audience with the impression he was sincere, approachable, and a regular guy.

He came to power at a time when many Americans had come to believe that the United States was in decline and that the job of President had simply become too big and too complex for any one man to handle. Jimmy Carter had supposedly worked harder at it than any other president, yet he was a miserable failure. Then along came Reagan, described by his political enemies as a more or less simple minded actor and shallow thinker who had to be stage-managed by his handlers.

But strangely enough, Reagan came to power during a period of crisis, a weak national defense, high unemployment, ultra-high interest rates and inflation, and a persistent national malaise, and somehow solved all these problems.

How did he do it?

Reagan came to office with a firm and unique philosophy of government. While many accuse Reagan of ignorance and lack of interest, Reagan, in fact, was a man of ideas and conviction. When it came to his core beliefs-small federal government, tax cuts and a formidable defense policy-Reagan was unbending.

When even his own staff members rallied against him, begging him to relent, Reagan shook his head and spoke of "staying the course."

Reagan's managerial style was to focus on his main agenda and delegate all other policy decisions to his staff. Of course, these strengths were also at times serious weaknesses -- leading, for example, to the disaster called Iran-Contra. Too much delegation is not a good thing.

But this, too, was due not to "cognitive limitations" but to a determination to focus on achieving several key principles.

Standing in the vast interior atrium of the Ronald Reagan Federal government office building -- which is a 2-minute stroll across the Woodrow Wilson Plaza from my office at the Federal Triangle -- is a small concrete slab taken from what was the Berlin Wall.

Having grown up practicing "duck and cover" drills in elementary school, having watched every night the lead international news story concern some place called the Soviet Union and the risk of an apocalyptic war, this small piece of graffiti- covered concrete is a profound symbol of one of the most sweeping historical changes accomplished during my lifetime: the end of the Cold War.

Reagan brought this vast historical fact into being; something to which I confess I have been at times unmindful. The conclusion is inescapable that it was Reagan who was in charge, and it was Reagan who set out to make and did make fundamental changes to the course of American history.

I do not like all of those changes; but I'm not so foolish as to create a fantasy to explain how they came about.

I recommend the book: "Reagan on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Great Communicator" by James M. Strock.

Jim Strock is a good friend of mine. He is not a right-wing ideologue. He's not even a Republican. I also like his book on Theodore Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership : Executive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit. Strock is a real fan of TR.

The Taliban tried to blow up Dick Cheney. ... He was never in danger -- at the time of the attack, he was safely asleep in his coffin. ... I just hope that this attempt on his life doesn't turn him bitter, vicious, and paranoid.

Dick Cheney said he felt terrible about shooting a 78-year-old man, but on the bright side, it did give him a great idea about how to fix Social Security.

Originally posted by Scriabin

Having grown up practicing "duck and cover" drills in elementary school, having watched every night the lead international news story concern some place called the Soviet Union and the risk of an apocalyptic war, this small piece of graffiti- covered concrete is a profound symbol of one of the most sweeping historical changes accomplished during my lifeti ...[text shortened]... agan who set out to make and did make fundamental changes to the course of American history.

I do find it extraordinary that Reagan's very dangerous game of brinkmanship should have earned him the reputation in some quarters of being the man who ended the Cold War. Reagan escalated the Cold War.

The end of the Cold War was brought about by a change in Soviet leadership. Gorbachev's moderation, decency and willingness to negotiate were the key factors.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
I do find it extraordinary that Reagan's very dangerous game of brinkmanship should have earned him the reputation in some quarters of being the man who ended the Cold War. Reagan escalated the Cold War. The end of the Cold War was brought about by a change in Soviet leadership. Gorbachev's moderation, decency and willingness to negotiate were the key factors.

The Men In Grey Suits who backed Reagan were probably horrified to find the Cold War coming to an end.

Originally posted by Scriabin
But strangely enough, Reagan came to power during a period of crisis, a weak national defense, high unemployment, ultra-high interest rates and inflation, and a persistent national malaise, and somehow solved all these problems.

How did he do it?

By pouring billions of borrowed dollars into the US economy.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
I do find it extraordinary that Reagan's very dangerous game of brinkmanship should have earned him the reputation in some quarters of being the man who ended the Cold War. Reagan escalated the Cold War.

The end of the Cold War was brought about by a change in Soviet leadership. Gorbachev's moderation, decency and willingness to negotiate were the key factors.

don't be daft.

no one in Gorby's position is such a saint -- and they don't dissolve empires on a whim.

the Soviet Union was bankrupted by Afghanistan, by the Reagan arms race strategy, and finally by Chernobyl.

It fell apart whether or not Gorby liked it.

he put the best face he could on it to preserve his place in history as a secular saint.

c'mon, I may have been born at night, but not last night.

Originally posted by FMF
The Men In Grey Suits who backed Reagan were probably horrified to find the Cold War coming to an end.

that came later -- the defense contracting industy still has not recovered from the end of the Russian menace.

the recently announced shift away from old Cold War weapons systems and strategies that are less relevant signal terminations of several extraordinarily expensive and unnecessary weapons programs. This demonstrate that even at this late date, the Cold War is still with us.

We in this country have tolerated defense projects like the $160 billion Army's Future Combat Systems, the Air Force's $140 million ea F-22 fighter, the DDG-1000 Destroyer, the Transformational Communications Satellite (T-SAT), and the presidential helicopter, to name but a few of the more expensive programs.

We spent billions of dollars on these trinkets while allowing our regular troop compliment decline and become unready and inadequate for the job -- so we put reserves out there on multiple deployments and may have ultimately sabotaged our long range capability to gain popular support for joining the military. We don't take adequate care of injured service men and women. We don't pay them enough so they can afford a home and a family. We don't enforce laws guaranteeing they will have a job to return to. We fail our veterans and our active duty troops daily due to Congress' use of the Defense budget merely to funnel money into their districts to prop up their incumbency and to pay off political pals.

Reagan was far less connected to these contractors than congressmen or the Bushies.

Bush and, especially, Cheney, staged an entire war in order to drain the surplus left by Clinton into the Haliburtons, KBRs and Blackwaters. Cheney helped his pal Rummy with the great concern over a potential avian flu pandemic, causing the Federal government to spend many many hundreds of millions to produce Tamoxifen, produced by the company in which Rummy served as a board member and enjoyed large stock positions.




the C-17 cargo plane, which is built in Long Beach. A new fleet of presidential helicopters also would be dropped under the plan.

another example of defense related corruption in the procurement game:

The Coast Guard now plans to seek damages from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for eight failed patrol boats that have come to exemplify the problems with its $24 billion modernization effort.

The service is seeking a refund for a project to convert 110-foot patrol boats into 123-foot vessels as part of its so-called Deepwater program. The Coast Guard initially planned to upgrade 49 patrol boats but stopped in 2005 after eight had been completed and problems developed in their hulls and decks. At that time, the eight boats, converted at a cost of about $80 million, were put on restrictive duty that forbade them operating in waves higher than eight feet. Last year, after finding more problems, the Coast Guard took those eight boats out of service, and it recently said the boats could not be salvaged and would be scrapped.

Sorry about that, start again ...

Why did it take so long to decide to get the money back? Politics, party, of course.

"I applaud the Coast Guard for taking this critically important step to recoup millions of dollars wasted by the contractor," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard, said in a statement. "We must continue to hold [the contractors] responsible for these flawed ships that fall far short of contract requirements. Taxpayers should not get stuck with this bill. We will keep on this issue until we fix Deepwater."


Yeah, right.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Well, if it makes you feel better you can just call the pre-1994 Reagan "forgetful".

Okay.

But Reagan being forgetful does not mean that G HW Bush was de facto President during Reagan's second term. I think Reagan did just fine during his second term; the Iran-contra circus notwithstanding.