Hell yes, again with Reagan...

"Fighting a war"... ? The only "war" Reagan "fought" was with a bunch of under-paid, over-worked Cubans that decided they needed another 78 miles of white sandy beaches so they invaded Grenada.

Look, I'm picking again, I know... yes, the Cold War was a real contest, and yes he did go into the White House with the promise of changing the status quo from "containment" to "confrontation". However, if MY over-simplification is too much, then yours is too.

Defense was NOT Ronnie's ONLY big-budget item... he spent billions of dollars and squandered tons of support in the then far more conservative Union/Labor votes by opening up US ports to steel from nations we hadn't bought steel from since WWII, and that started a 30 year "free trade" effort that we are still trying to come to terms with today in the NAFTA and CAFTA treaties. He allowed the Education Department to GROW by more than 12% over the course of his two terms, after PROMISING to do away with it entirely in his election campaign. He poured hundreds of millions of dollars into questionable regimes and politicians in places like Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, Honduras, Argentina, South Africa, Saudi Arabia... and more than one of those listed would come back to haunt us later.

I don't want you to tell me Reagan was human, and made mistakes... I already know that and LOVE to point it out to anyone that forgets it as often as I can... but I DO want you to see that much of what Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity... any pundit from the right that you want to quote, really... has said is to be expected from the next GOP candidate (and especially Mark Levin) is not only unrealistic, it is probably patently impossible to achieve in even TWO terms of office. The "yardstick" I keep hearing used to determine who is going to be an acceptable candidate in 2012 and what they need to be willing to promise to win the entire broad, sweeping expanse of the CONSERVATIVE vote (I don't need to explain what will happen if a "third party" conservative runs, do I?) is that of the "GREAT AND POWERFUL RONALD WILSON REAGAN"... but the Reagan I recall didn't manage to live up to the very standard that bears his name in the handle "Reagan Conservative".

See my point? REAGAN himself couldn't pass the litmus test that people like Levin and Beck have determined to be needed for ANYONE hoping to win the entire conservative vote in America... and that vote has become pretty diverse now that the Tea Party is such an issue.