2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Pretty much the point I was making. Those who see Obama as a silhouette propped up by handlers were somehow wowwed by Reagan, who was created in a focus group lab and wheeled out (literally, during his second term) to disgorge talking points with a winning, uncomprehending grin.

Since 1968 we've had three presidents who weren't stage directed. Two of them got impeached and the third is building houses in Africa. Maybe we should just hire actors from now on...

I see Obama as much more independent of his handlers than Reagan was. Reagan was getting up there and though an intelligent guy, he clearly relied heavily on others in many ways. I think Obama isn't as reliant and calls his own shots more (even if he calls them very badly).

 

[geezer]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Pretty much the point I was making. Those who see Obama as a silhouette propped up by handlers were somehow wowwed by Reagan, who was created in a focus group lab and wheeled out (literally, during his second term) to disgorge talking points with a winning, uncomprehending grin.

Since 1968 we've had three presidents who weren't stage directed. Two of them got impeached and the third is building houses in Africa. Maybe we should just hire actors from now on...

I'm with you on this. I'm more comfortable with an amiable figurehead than someone with an uncompromising agenda. I hope to have a chance to vote for Abe Lincoln's hologram (TM- Koch Industries) before too long.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

God forbid but I'll give Reagan a little more credit than saying he was a cartoon character following a script. His foreign policy decisions were excellent, both in knowing when to chose confrontation and when to make a deal with his adversaries. Unfortunately his domestic policy decisions gave us voodoo economics which the GOP still subscribes to after all these years as well as those Moral Majority kooks who have no problem using govt to tell you how to live your life while they're banging their secretaries and blowing their money on hookers, gambling and booze.

But, at the end of the day, he was a good bookend to the Cold War but his era is now in the history books and therefore has little relevance to today. It is a good point though about who exactly are right leaning voters supposed to look up to? There's only been one GOP presidency in the last 22 years and it was an unmitigated disaster. Relatively few people remember Ike, and Nixon was a disgrace while Ford and Bush I had uneventful Presidencies, so the Gipper is it.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Relatively few people remember Ike, and Nixon was a disgrace while Ford and Bush I had uneventful Presidencies, so the Gipper is it.

I think Bush Senior gets the shaft historically. He was hopelessly out of the loop as far as how ordinary people lived and worked and his policies reflected that ignorance, but by all accounts he was sincere. And most significantly, he took a bullet to do the right thing for the country. While it's not up there with signing the VRA knowing the political cost, it was still miles more courageous than anything any other president has done in the last 50 years.

The major flaw in GHWB is it was on his campaign that all sense of decorum and factual accuracy disappeared. It is ironic that an honorable man would run the most dishonorable campaign in 100 years, and usher in our age of total campaign warfare.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I think Bush Senior gets the shaft historically. He was hopelessly out of the loop as far as how ordinary people lived and worked and his policies reflected that ignorance, but by all accounts he was sincere. And most significantly, he took a bullet to do the right thing for the country. While it's not up there with signing the VRA knowing the political cost, it was still miles more courageous than anything any other president has done in the last 50 years.

The major flaw in GHWB is it was on his campaign that all sense of decorum and factual accuracy disappeared. It is ironic that an honorable man would run the most dishonorable campaign in 100 years, and usher in our age of total campaign warfare.

The fact that he was willing to compromise made him weak in the eyes of today's Tory party. They see compromise as a dirty word. The two honorable men the Tories ran for POTUS (Bush I, Dole) lost fantastically. The 1999 version of John McCain was another honorable man and he was savaged in the primary. I might have voted for that John McCain if I'd had the chance. But that version of McCain was willing to work with Democrats, so he had to be defeated. What's amazing is that Reagan was able to work with Democrats very successfully, yet he escapes the criticism hurled at others.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

The fact that he was willing to compromise made him weak in the eyes of today's Tory party. They see compromise as a dirty word. The two honorable men the Tories ran for POTUS (Bush I, Dole) lost fantastically. The 1999 version of John McCain was another honorable man and he was savaged in the primary. I might have voted for that John McCain if I'd had the chance. But that version of McCain was willing to work with Democrats, so he had to be defeated. What's amazing is that Reagan was able to work with Democrats very successfully, yet he escapes the criticism hurled at others.

Bush Sr.'s problem was that he compromised to give the Dems something they wanted, and then they used it against him to crater his reelection. No surprise that seeds of mistrust were planted through that series of events. A lot of Reps said not to trust the Dems, and they turned out to be right in that case.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Bush Sr.'s problem was that he compromised to give the Dems something they wanted, and then they used it against him to crater his reelection. No surprise that seeds of mistrust were planted through that series of events. A lot of Reps said not to trust the Dems, and they turned out to be right in that case.

Funny, because I thought sure I remembered Pitchfork Pat Buchanan causing Bush most of his problems by nipping at his heels from the right, and I don't recall Pat registering as a Democrat!

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Funny, because I thought sure I remembered Pitchfork Pat Buchanan causing Bush most of his problems by nipping at his heels from the right, and I don't recall Pat registering as a Democrat!

My recollection is that folks like Pat nipped at Bush's heals because they said to not trust the Dems and they were proved correct.

 

[joecct]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I'm always amused by polls like this. I'm going to point out something unpleasant here. Any poll showing Reagan as the most popular president is overly comprised of old people, because to have any good recollection of Reagan's Presidency you'd have to be in your 40's. To have voted for him, your 50's.

So no offense but people like walrus, Opie, joecct, Fishy, huskfan, etc are old. That's not a bad thing as I hope to be old someday myself. But if you take a poll where old people are most likely the ones participating, you're going to get results that senile Reagan was some sort of Saint and Bush II was really misunderstood!

However, no worries here. As I've said before, I look forward to Bush II and Cheney hitting the campaign trail for the GOP candidate in 2016! Who's with me?

With age comes wisdom. When you hit your late 50's, whippersnapper, you'll marvel at the sanity of your elder betters.

You want it all NOW which is probably due to your instant gratification childhood. Patience, grasshopper. Rome, despite Henry Kaiser's assurances, was not built in a day.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Reagan was a puppet that surrounded himself with crooks, and yet the same people that wax poetically about his run would undoubtedly smirk at the concept of Kennedy's Camelot.

 

[GrinCDXX]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Bush Sr.'s problem was that he compromised to give the Dems something they wanted, and then they used it against him to crater his reelection. No surprise that seeds of mistrust were planted through that series of events. A lot of Reps said not to trust the Dems, and they turned out to be right in that case.

I wasn't old enough to remember this (or care). I'm curious as to what he gave the Dems that they wanted and how they used it against him in the campaign. You sure it wasn't the Perot camp that used it against him?

 

[walrus]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Reagan was a puppet that surrounded himself with crooks,.

This is true for all recent presidents

 

[burd]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

With age comes wisdom. When you hit your late 50's, whippersnapper, you'll marvel at the sanity of your elder betters.

You want it all NOW which is probably due to your instant gratification childhood. Patience, grasshopper. Rome, despite Henry Kaiser's assurances, was not built in a day.

So true. It wasn't til I hit 55 that I realized how completely deranged social conservatives are.

 

[unofan]

I wasn't old enough to remember this (or care). I'm curious as to what he gave the Dems that they wanted and how they used it against him in the campaign. You sure it wasn't the Perot camp that used it against him?

I'm assuming he's talking about the tax hike which, while it did lower the deficit, broke his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge.

I would guess the economic recession played the biggest role, and Perot surely didn't help.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I wasn't old enough to remember this (or care). I'm curious as to what he gave the Dems that they wanted and how they used it against him in the campaign. You sure it wasn't the Perot camp that used it against him?

GHW Bush raised taxes. It was a good idea for a tax structure, as it would encourage people to be more productive. Essentially, the top marginal bracket in 1989 was 28%. Bush released a budget plan that would charge a "10% surcharge" to that TMR for a certain group within the bracket, effectively making the top TMR 31%. The kicker is, if you wanted to get out of that TMR, you could continue to earn more to move out of it. I don't have the real dollar figures at hand, but say the 28% bracket began at $150,000, and then at $200,000 the surcharge kicked into effect. The person in that bracket had the opportunity to then get his/her tax bracket back down to 28% by earning over, say, $400,000, thus encouraging more production from the top earners. We were just coming out of a recession on the heals of the Persian War, and when the bill was drafted and signed we were still in a recessed economy. This surcharge, I think , was intended to encourage more production from the group of earners thought to be most responsive to tax rate changes.

This got him into trouble because not only is he a Republican, but during the 1988 election, he uttered the famous line, "Read my lips, no new taxes!" while on the campaign trail.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I think Bush Senior gets the shaft historically. He was hopelessly out of the loop as far as how ordinary people lived and worked and his policies reflected that ignorance, but by all accounts he was sincere. And most significantly, he took a bullet to do the right thing for the country. While it's not up there with signing the VRA knowing the political cost, it was still miles more courageous than anything any other president has done in the last 50 years.

The major flaw in GHWB is it was on his campaign that all sense of decorum and factual accuracy disappeared. It is ironic that an honorable man would run the most dishonorable campaign in 100 years, and usher in our age of total campaign warfare.

Still drinking the Willie Horton Kool Aid I see. The fact that Al Gore was first to use Horton against Dukakis is, as Ralph Kramden would say: "a mere bag of shells." Bob Beckel has been honest over the years that Dukakis deserved to be slammed over a furlough program he inherited from his predecessor but supported totally and fought to retain while he was in office.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

GHW Bush raised taxes. It was a good idea for a tax structure, as it would encourage people to be more productive. Essentially, the top marginal bracket in 1989 was 28%. Bush released a budget plan that would charge a "10% surcharge" to that TMR for a certain group within the bracket, effectively making the top TMR 31%. The kicker is, if you wanted to get out of that TMR, you could continue to earn more to move out of it. I don't have the real dollar figures at hand, but say the 28% bracket began at $150,000, and then at $200,000 the surcharge kicked into effect. The person in that bracket had the opportunity to then get his/her tax bracket back down to 28% by earning over, say, $400,000, thus encouraging more production from the top earners. We were just coming out of a recession on the heals of the Persian War, and when the bill was drafted and signed we were still in a recessed economy. This surcharge, I think , was intended to encourage more production from the group of earners thought to be most responsive to tax rate changes.

This got him into trouble because not only is he a Republican, but during the 1988 election, he uttered the famous line, "Read my lips, no new taxes!" while on the campaign trail.

The bigger sin was to make the promise in the first place. Something this group of Tories fails to understand.

The issue was used for political gain much more by Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot than the Democrats. Also, the economy in general was the focus of the Clinton campaign (It's the economy, stupid) not just tax policy. GHWB's approval rating tanked as the economy cratered (and no, don't try to blame taxes as they had only been implemented a few months beforehand - and Clinton raised them again in 1993 and the economy boomed).

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Bush Sr.'s problem was that he compromised to give the Dems something they wanted, and then they used it against him to crater his reelection.

This just aint true, Bob. The Dems didn't use it against Bush, the Republicans who were still mired in "voodoo economics" (Bush's term in 1980) used it to pull the plug on party support for Bush.

Bush wouldn't have won anyway (Clinton was too strong and the economy was too weak), but the significant political fallout from Bush's decision was intra-party warfare. It was analogous to the Kennedy Dems screwing over Jimmy in 1980.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

This just aint true, Bob. The Dems didn't use it against Bush, the Republicans who were still mired in "voodoo economics" (Bush's term in 1980) used it to pull the plug on party support for Bush.

Bush wouldn't have won anyway (Clinton was too strong and the economy was too weak), but the significant political fallout from Bush's decision was intra-party warfare. It was analogous to the Kennedy Dems screwing over Jimmy in 1980.

Real GDP was growing as of Q4 1991. "It's the economy, stupid" was a great line for a political campaign, but it simply wasn't true.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

The bigger sin was to make the promise in the first place. Something this group of Tories fails to understand.

The issue was used for political gain much more by Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot than the Democrats. Also, the economy in general was the focus of the Clinton campaign (It's the economy, stupid) not just tax policy. GHWB's approval rating tanked as the economy cratered (and no, don't try to blame taxes as they had only been implemented a few months beforehand - and Clinton raised them again in 1993 and the economy boomed).

The economy really started booming after Clinton cut the capital gains taxes. He cut them significantly, and that's when the markets really started to catch fire.