Is Obama following Reagan?

[GamezRule]

Fascism is not the opposite of Conservatism, more like a more extreme version that doesn't rely on Religion.

 

[Traitorfish]

Fascism is not the opposite of Conservatism, more like a more extreme version that doesn't rely on Religion.

Actually, Fascism is by definition revolutionary, and so opposed to Conservativism. There's enough of an over-lap between Fascism and the harder edge of Conservativism that they are often able get on quite well, but that tends to reflect the circumstances in which Fascism arises and the fact that the two appeal to a similar mass audience in the reactionary lower-middle class, rather than to suggest a strong ideological link.

 

[Formaldehyde]

As much as you preach about people blindly following this or that, you do it in spades.

Engaging in yet another obvious logical fallacy by attacking the poster instead of addressing the issues again?

Are there any other sources for this story than Lesley Stahl?

You make it sound like a conspiracy theory dreamt up by a single person instead of well-known fact.


Link to video.

Ronald Reagan Was Completely Senile When He Was the President, You Know

Kennedy] found the disengagement of Mr. Carter8217;s successor, Ronald Reagan, at times oddly charming, though at other times frustrating. The senator said it had been difficult to get Reagan to focus on policy matters. He described a meeting with him that he and other senators had sought to press for shoe and textile import limits.

The senators were told that they would have just 30 minutes with the president. Reagan began the meeting, the book said, commenting on Mr. Kennedy's shoes asking if they were Bostonians and then talking for 20 minutes about shoes and his experience selling shoes for his father. Several of us began conspicuously to glance at our watches. But to no avail. And it was over! Mr. Kennedy said. No one got a word in about shoe or textile quota legislation.

Ronald Reagan: Confirmed Senile Old Fool

Report: Reagan's son suggests father had Alzheimer's while in White House

Ronald Reagan8217;s youngest son says in a new book that he believes his father suffered from Alzheimer8217;s disease while in the White House, according to a column in U.S. News & World Report.

Ron Reagan makes the suggestion in his new book 8220;My Father at 100," due out next week, Paul Bedard writes in the news magazine8217;s 8220;Washington Whispers8221; column. Ronald Reagan, who was president from 1981-1989, and his wife Nancy publicly revealed he had Alzheimer8217;s in 1994.

His son Ron, who became a liberal and atheist, suggests he saw hints of confusion and "an out-of-touch president" during the 1984 campaign and again in 1986, when his father couldn't recall the names of California canyons he was flying over, according to the U.S. News & World Report column.

In his memoir, Ron Reagan notes that doctors today know that the disease can be present before it is recognized, according to the report. "The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's while in office more or less answers itself," Ron Reagan writes, according to the column.

The son also says his father, after leaving the White House, had brain surgery after being thrown from a horse on July 4, 1989, while in Mexico. He says his father, after initially refusing medical help, was taken to a San Diego hospital, Bedard writes.

"Surgeons opening his skull to relieve pressure on the brain emerged from the operating room with the news that they had detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer's disease," the younger Reagan writes, according to Bedard. Several Reagan associates, however, say there was no surgery in San Diego, Bedard noted.

Not only was he senile while in office, he was incredibly stupid:

Not Even a Hedgehog - The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.

 

[amadeus]

I shouldn't have to literally facepalm after reading these things. Once again, the Ron Reagan book gets trotted out and treated as gospel. Of course, the words of Reagan's own doctors go without being listened to. So, Formaldehyde, did Reagan's doctors lie?

 

[Formaldehyde]

If they claimed he wasn't senile while in office they obviously did. The evidence is overwhelming and it even comes from many of his own "associates" now that he is dead.

Did you watch the video above of an acknowledged expert in the field claiming he was senile in 1984?

 

[amadeus]

If they claimed he wasn't senile while in office they obviously did.

Who's the conspiracy nut now?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Anybody who disagrees with your own personal opinion must be a "conspiracy nut".

Yet another completely absurd ad hominem instead of addressing the obvious issues? Do you think this is going to "win" the "debate"?

 

[amadeus]

Anybody who disagrees with your own personal opinion must be a "conspiracy nut".

You were the one that first made the suggestion after I said that I thought Lesley Stahl was/is full of crap. The same for Ron Reagan.

I'll trust the litany of doctors, advisers and close confidants over the ramblings over a washed-up ballet dancer and a forgotten TV news babe.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You were the one that first made the suggestion after I said that I thought Lesley Stahl was/is full of crap. The same for Ron Reagan.

Right. Anybody who disagrees with your personal opinion is "full of crap". And that goes for all the Reagan advisors who have written books since he died and claimed the same thing.

I'll trust the litany of doctors, advisers and close confidants over the ramblings over a washed-up ballet dancer and a forgotten TV news babe.

Even more ad hominems! Yay!

 

[amadeus]

Right. Anybody who disagrees with your personal opinion is "full of crap".

No, just some people.

And that goes for all the Reagan advisors who have written books since he died and claimed the same thing.

Got any of those books?

 

[JollyRoger]

Trusting government doctors over family? Really, amadeus?

 

[amadeus]

Trusting government doctors over family? Really, amadeus?

I guess this is one of those cases where the private sector fails.

 

[Cutlass]

Even if you can't prove Reagan senile, you're still stuck with the reality of Reagan stupid as a tree stump. It's not really an improvement.

 

[classical_hero]

It is not like Ron Reagan Jnr has been disowned by his family for telling these lies.

 

[JollyRoger]

It is not like Ron Reagan Jnr has been disowned by his family for telling these lies.

I thought they threw him in a ditch and then sold him to a camel caravan headed for Egypt.

 

[Traitorfish]

Even more ad hominems! Yay!

Sexist ad hominems, too. Just so you know you're dealing with a real classy guy.

Even if you can't prove Reagan senile, you're still stuck with the reality of Reagan stupid as a tree stump. It's not really an improvement.

It's actually worse, because this way it was a terrible idea to ever nominated him in the first place.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Even if you can't prove Reagan senile, you're still stuck with the reality of Reagan stupid as a tree stump. It's not really an improvement.

That's your opinion. Fine. I think the guy before him was stupid.

That said, he spoke, and that makes him smarter than a tree stump.

It is not like Ron Reagan Jnr has been disowned by his family for telling these lies.

Just because its not a lie doesn't make it true. An untruth told in sincerity is neither telling the truth nor lying.

 

[Cutlass]

Sexist ad hominems, too. Just so you know you're dealing with a real classy guy.


It's actually worse, because this way it was a terrible idea to ever nominated him in the first place.

Plenty of stupid people have supporters. Because plenty of smart people want a figurehead instead of a leader. And sometimes a stupid person is personable and likable. And sometimes the opponents are poorly organized or not likable.

 

[Traitorfish]

Plenty of stupid people have supporters. Because plenty of smart people want a figurehead instead of a leader. And sometimes a stupid person is personable and likable. And sometimes the opponents are poorly organized or not likable.

Sure enough, but you're not supposed to admit that you got a nincompoop elected- especially not the Right, with all their bootstraps and rugged individualism. So they're pretty much left with "he was senile" or "he was thick as two short planks", and only the former let's them off the collective hook by being something they couldn't predict.

 

[Cutlass]

But they could predict it. Reagan was no great governor of California. And I heard that Gerald Ford tried to organize something like a regency council for Reagan to hold him in check until he grew up. So it's not like it wasn't known that Reagan was an idiot before he became president. But he was, at that time, the spokesman for a movement that didn't care about his competence, only ability to get elected.

There was an assumption, by those who followed Reagan, and in fact by Reagan himself, that ideological purity was the measure of both competence and honesty. So it didn't really matter what someone said or did, or if they were proven wrong in the past, as long as their Party Loyalty could not be impinged, they were in. Once the Party Loyalty was questionable, they were out.

This is another reason that I have frequently used to comparison of Republicans and conservatives to communists. Reagan, and most of his followers, would have been perfect fits for the Brezhnev Politburo. In fact, they would have fit there far better than they did in the White House.