Revisiting Reagan

Now that the 24/7 Reagan memorial craze seems to have finally blown over, I figure it's about time for me to post this.

But first, a quick comment (Ok, potshot) at the Bush/Cheney reelection committee that replaced information on Bush with a full page memorial on their website. (You can read about it at Talking Points Memo) What was up with that? It made you wonder whether they really are gunning for this.

Anyway, in the thick of it, I was hitting a lot of cognitive dissonance while listening to all the overly saccharin, warm fuzzies that were lavished over his memory. But it was hard not to get caught up in it either. I do remember the scary nuclear build up, which were hightlighted by movies like Wargames or the TV miniseries, The Day After. But, yeah, we beat the Evil Empire (mark 1), right? Yay us. And reading some of the backstory now, I find I have to give credit to the ol' Gipper for having the cojones to play his hand strong when the stakes included possible world annihilation.

That being said, I did want to go through a list of what I remember from the Reagan administration, having achieving sentience around that time.

• "trees cause pollution" [link]
• the attempt to classify ketchup as a vegetable [link]
• Iran-Contra [pbs.org]
• the aforementioned nuclear arms race and threat of nuclear annihilation.
• Reaganomics/voodoo economics and the resulting record deficits (until now, that is)
• Savings & Loan Crisis (although fully materializing during Bush Sr.'s tenure)
• Oh yeah, Star Wars (the Strategic Defense Initiative, that is)

Then there's stuff that I've found out since then:

• removal of solar panels from the Whitehouse when Reagan took office. [link] [link]
• support of Saddam Hussein
• CIA funding of Osama bin Laden (There's also this article that discusses the Reagan administration's culpability in the rise and spread of Islamic fundamentalism)

I think the last two can both be considered to be the "Reagan doctrine" in action.

Anyway, a lot of this can also be found in this article from the Washington Post (If you've got issues with the login requirements, don't forget our friends over at BugMeNot.com), which I thought was a much more balanced perspective than the rest of what was being broadcast.

And to be fair, here are my memories of the Carter administration:

• double-digit inflation
• Odd/Even days to buy gas
• U.S. embassy hostages in Iran
• middle east peace (Egypt-Israel)
• Something about Salt?

So I suppose everyone sucks if you think about it enough. Which seems to be a fairly accurate starting point these days for a lot of people.