Snarky, mean-spirited bite-size reminiscences about Ronald Reagan on the tenth anniversary of his death.

Go!

One could go on. I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.

"a cruel and stupid lizard"

hahaha beat me

"rictus of senile fury" is the money shot there IMO

The SNL sketch with Phil Hartman about Reagan stopping to play dumb and pose for pictures between planning sessions for Iran-Contra where he was a ballbusting thug wouldn't have happened without him.

Please watch the last three minutes of this press conference. It's astonishing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3eyISCTG5Y

"I think I'd like to, uh, point out that Maynard Keynes didn't even HAVE a degree in economics."

it's weird to think that it's only been 10 years. guess it just feels like longer because he was so completely out of the public eye in the final years.

"I think I'd like to, uh, point out that Maynard Keynes didn't even HAVE a degree in economics. OWN a television."

Too bad he hasnt been dead for longer

it's not snark but i've always liked this insight from hendrik hertzberg, on the difference between reagan and the neocon hawks who surrounded him:

When Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and "the form of evil in the modern world," conservative op-ed writers expressed their satisfaction that at last we had a president who had a moral vocabulary and a tragic sense of history, a president who recognized that some political systems are irredeemably tyrannical and aggressive, a president who rejected the contemptible claptrap that attributes every international conflict to "lack of understanding." These commentators, and many of their friends inside the Reagan administration, saw Gorbachev as simply cleverer than his predecessors, and therefore more dangerous. Reagan did not agree. When he said "evil," he just meant bad. He didn't really believe in immutable malevolence. The villains of Reagan's world were like the ones in Frank Capra's movies: capable of change once they saw the light. Reagan thought that Gorbachev was a pretty good guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ldBpQkIVv8

Piper Laurie said he was a selfish, lousy lay.

http://winnietoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/1-ronald-reagan-taunting.jpg

horrified by the image of Piper Laurie and Ronald Reagan having sex thx morbz

Ronald had a thumbdick iirc

Please watch the last three minutes of this press conference. It's astonishing.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, June 6, 2014

what did you think was astounding about it?

sarahell otm

horrified by the image of Piper Laurie and Ronald Reagan having sex thx morbz

― Οὖτις, Friday, June 6, 2014 4:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

REAGAN IS CARRIE'S DAD OMG

http://31.media.tumblr.com/b9ed1cb83265aec9968d0d8792426ed6/tumblr_n42cyp4gp31s7e5k5o1_1280.jpg

sadly reagan seems almost (almost) palatable compared to many/most in today's GOP

Oh yeah, Reagan wouldn't make it past NH in a GOP presidential primary.

I was eating at a some bar and grille type place in Minot, ND en route to Seattle when a bunch of middle aged air force looking guys came in and were talking about Reagan dying and Smarty Jones losing the Belmont and one of them said something like "we lost two good ones today" before offering a toast which seemed like a really weird thing to say.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/27/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myth_no_one_had_ever_entered_the_white_house_so_grossly_ill_informed/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

His team devised ingenious ways to get him to pay attention. Aware that he was obsessed with movies, his national security adviser had the CIA put together a film on world leaders the president was scheduled to encounter. His defense secretary stooped lower. He got Reagan to sign off on production of the MX missile by showing him a cartoon.

never knew abt Piper Laurie, thanks thread!

Good to read this stuff for the 456th time.