Trust me. Unlike you, I lived through the Reagan years.

He totally sucked!

And the world we reap today is because of the same lies you believed in yesterday and the lack of faith you ever had in tomorrow.

I remember those years; Iran Contra, lies, secret wars, more lies, scandals and corruption and even more lies, a crappy economy and a lot more debt, followed by lies.

If Reagan didn't completely suck it's only because George Bush has lowered the bar.

Reagan and ALL republicans that ever lived suck. completely.

Of course, all Democrats piss rainbows and shit daisies. All the time. Their stuff NEVER stinks.

Never mind the scandals that Clinton caused, from Waco, to the multiple unsolved murders around the Clinton White House, to the financial debacles, and his drug smuggling operations.

Sure, Bush is far worse, but Democrats are not exactly saints.

Nostalgia will.

Reagan defeated communism.

The Cold War was the issue of his time and he "defeated" it. The facts mean little. If they did with respect to past presidents, Lincoln wouldn't be known as someone standing up against slavery, when his primary objective was to hold the union together, not free the slaves.

I admire those that focus on the facts of Reagan but the average Joe and Jane citizen in the midwest remember the nostalgia of his presidency. He did lead, whether it was wrong or right, he made people believe he was right. History will most likely put him in the camp with the great presidents, whether we that know of the facts want him to or not.

"Of course, all Democrats piss rainbows and shit daisies. All the time. Their stuff NEVER stinks."

If you say so. I never thought they were saints, but any damn Democrat beats the hell out of your glorious Reagan.

"he made people believe he was right."

He had a lot of help from the MSM.

Reagan didn't defeat communism. Communism defeated itself. Gorbachev was the hero of 1989, not Reagan.

I'm sick of this "Reagan won the cold war" bullshit.

I suspect next to George W. Bush's unmitigated domestic and foreign policy failings, Reagan in hindsight looks very much the lesser of two evils. But keep in mind that the failure to put the Iran-contra people behind bars paved the way for Bush and company to engage in equal treachery to launch the Iraq war. And Americans under Reagan weren't necessarily safe from international terrorism, either -- remember the 241 Marines killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing, or the Pan Am 103 bombing five years later.

On the other hand, Ronnie told us all those funny stories about being a 1930s Chicago Cubs broadcaster...

in a big way. You just wouldn't know it because the Republicans have elevated him to sainthood with the help of the media. Iran/Contra and the Savings and Loan Scandal to name a couple of low lights. Please no "but, but Ronnie saved us from the Red Menace". You mean the big bad Russkies that were going to implode all by themselves with out any capitalist intervention, he saved us from that? More like ran up deficits to play Rocket Man with a Star Wars scenario that if the Russians had any intel would have known it for the farce it was.

Amazing. Even a "liberal" historian apparently buys into the notion of American exceptionalism. It is OK to illegally fund and otherwise support death and torture squads.

And still not "completely suck."

Ronald Reagan was a lot of things. He was above all a fraud. He was a coward, a war criminal, a hypocrite, a bigot, a crook, a rapist, a dim wit, a turncoat, a scab, a war monger, a liar and a traitor. He was all of these things.

There was not one God damn good thing about him.

Just because Bush sucks even MORE doesn't mean Reagan didn't completely suck. Bush is just proof that no matter how bad something (Reagan) is, it can always be worse in a way you never could imagine until it happens. By the same token, there is somebody out there who is even worse than Bush. That doesn't mean there is ANYTHING good to say about Bush. And there is NOTHING good to say about Reagan. He pulled the rug out from under the U.S. Bush has now ripped out the floor. That doesn't mean there is no lower to go.

He sucked like a vacuum. He should have been jailed, much like the current President. Any other reading of his presidency is fatuous.

WHAT DEFENSE CONTRACTOR PENNED THAT AND HANDED IT TO THIS BAYARD CHARACTER ANYWAY?

I SMELL A RAT. I SMELL LOTS OF RATS.

NEOCON REPUBLICAN RATS! SEETHING AND GNASHING THEIR TEETH AND CRAWLING UP THE LEGS OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!

I remember Reagan, Bush and Meese.

We tried to get them impeached.

RATS!

If you give lip service to certain vague ideas (freedom, limited government, hope, etc.), then what you actually DO becomes irrelevant.

for making Reagan look good. Bush makes anyone look good. At least Reagan could speak coherently even if the points he made were ridiculous.

As for the significance of Reagan, I always think it's overrated compared to that Truman, LBJ or Nixon. For good or ill, his policies were largely continuations of, or reactions to, their policies. Even tax-cutting and the born again stuff was borrowed from Kennedy and Carter respectively.

brightstar65 asserts "Never mind the scandals that Clinton caused, from Waco, to the multiple unsolved murders around the Clinton White House, to the financial debacles, and his drug smuggling operations."

Fiction. All of it, except for the FBI-managed fiasco of the Waco standoff.

There were no "multiple unsolved murders."

"Financial debacles"? Do you mean Whitewater? That was investigated no less than three times, by qualified auditors, who all concluded that there was no there there.

"Drug smuggling operations"?!? What are you on, man?

The Waco incident, the only thing real in Mr. Star's list, occurred early in Clinton's first term, and, like Kennedy with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he foolishly let the "professionals" handle it. The mass killings of the Christian fundies in their compound near Waco can hardly be considered a "scandal." It's more rightly categorized as a "tragedy."

And hey! George Bush has a compound near Waco, too! And he calls it the "Prairie Chapel"! Maybe he's a crazy cultist, too. Maybe we'll get to see him under siege, too, one day.

We can dream, can't we?