Okay, time to be fair...

Ron Reagan really WAS one of the most important and influential Presidents to sit in the Oval Office. I readily admit that, here and now.

He is the highest ranked President on my Report Card, for good reason. He completely changed the way the US Government saw its policy concerning communism and the Soviet Union... in fact, all of its foreign policy. Domestically he changed our entire nation's view of how taxes and the rate at which people are taxed... even the liberals and progressives can't argue that point. His tax cuts in 1981 and 1982 did more to grow our economy over the next 10 years than anything that had been done previously since 1955. Libs and lefties will argue that it wasn't Reagan... but it was. Facts are facts. Whatever the reasons behind the actions and policies that I consider "failures" of his administrations, the successes outnumber the mistakes.

If the text-book definition of a "Reagan Conservative" is someone who understands that less government intervention in economics and private industry is better for the entire country, and that personal responsibility should always trump government entitlement, then I can live with that definition... and probably count myself as one, as well.

But if the definition is penned to suggest that Reagan did it RIGHT, beginning to end, and that a move back to his policies and programs (domestic or international) is the best course of action because HE MADE THEM WORK IN THE PAST, then I'm afraid I will continue to critique the use of "rose-tinted glasses" well into the future.

I voice no support of Carter when I say the following:

In the past, Ryan stated that James Earl Carter directly contributed to the nightmare that has been US-Iranian relations since 1979 by cutting off aid and support for the Shah of Iran until such time as he could institute dramatic and sweeping reforms to his government. This end of support and aid led to the situation that removed the Shah from power, and put the Iranian Revolutionary Council in his place. THAT has, indeed, been a thorn in our paw for more than 30 years... but if Carter contributed to that thorn through his policies and actions, and needs to be seen as having contributed as much... what does that tell us of Iraq's role since 1981 in American foreign policy?

Saddam Hussein had no bigger supporter than Ron Reagan. It has been suggested that the only thing that kept Saddam from being removed or beaten entirely during the eight-year war with Iran was American aid and support. Diplomacy by proxy is a time-tried fact of East-West and Cold War politics, I know... but the consequences do not end with the end of the Cold War, and if Carter must answer for his policy on Iran prior to 1981, then Reagan must answer on his policy towards Iraq post-1988. I'm not saying Reagan was wrong for supporting Iraq over Iran... but he was supporting a despotic tyrant and that support cost the US untold billions and thousands of lives (just as Carter's lack of support cost the US billions of dollars and thousands of lives, and 944 days of captivity for those poor embassy workers in Tehran, too). That was a short-sighted, short term gain policy that cost the US far more than it benefited it.

See my point? I don't deny that Reagan changed the game entirely... and I don't deny that no one since has had the chutspah to do it again, conservatively speaking... but it does rankle sore when I hear pundits and friends wax nostalgic for the days of the Reagan era, like a bunch of Alex P. Keaton wannabes. He did what others either couldn't or wouldn't... but he did make mistakes, and some of them were pretty big. He did pull the Marines out of Lebanon immediately after 200+ of them were murdered in their barracks, and that sounds a lot like letting terrorists and terrorism dictate foreign policy to me. He got his blank check for defense spending (Ryan's words) by perpetuating policies and agendas that still haunt us today, when all evidence points to the simple fact that the status quo policy of containment was working, and that Afghanistan was enough of a fiscal bleed for the Soviets to have spelled their death without "star wars" ever being needed. He got it done faster... but the progressive/liberal agenda was furthered along the way, too, and it was all the more entrenched afterwards.

The upside is that, if I had to give name to the President that WAS working to change the way things are done in the White House and DC as much as Reagan did, it would be Obama... and his policies and agendas are so WRONG, and they are wrong at such a fundamental level, that the swing back to the right will occur all the faster because of them. Reagan showed what WORKED... and Obama is showing us what DOES NOT WORK.