Finally, a book that gives Reagan the credit he deserves

In FrontPage Magazine, Bruce Bawer praises a new Reagan biography by Larry Schweikart, Reagan: The American President.

When, a couple of months into his presidency, he was shot by John Hinckley, he found, on the way to the hospital, that he couldn’t bring himself to ask God for help “while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who shot me,” and so he “prayed for Hinckley’s soul.”

The downside of this goodness was that Reagan, while no fool, was, like Anne Frank, ingenuous enough to believe that most people were essentially good. As Schweikart observes, his sunny view of humanity led to an “idealistic view that the US government was more or less pristine”; while he criticized faceless “bureaucracy” and “big government,” he was reluctant to confront the reality of “human corruption, lust for power, and petty jealousy,” not least in the inside-the-Beltway purlieus that we now, quite rightly, call “the Swamp.” As president, writes Schweikart, “Reagan all too frequently believed the liberals would in the end ‘play fair’ and let their humanity surface. One of the great ironies of Reagan’s presidency was that he had more success appealing to that human quality with the Soviets than he did with his Democrat opponents.” Brilliant point.

When Reagan’s film career waned, he found success in the new medium of television, serving as host of the anthology series General Electric Theater. As part of his deal (the biggest yet for a TV performer) he delivered talks at GE plants, where he revealed and honed a very particular set of skills that, it turned out, outshone his not inconsiderable acting talent – among them an ability to connect naturally with the common man and woman, to convey a genuine interest in their lives and concerns, and to communicate complex social and economic ideas largely by means of easily comprehensible anecdotes and jokes. Far from being a simpleton who, once in the White House, took direction from his cabinet, aides, and speechwriters, Reagan was, by his GE days, fully formed ideologically and very much his own man – one who’d concluded that appeasing the Soviet Union amounted to telling captive peoples to relinquish “hopes of freedom because we’ve decided to get along with your slave masters,” and who, having read the works of von Mises, Hazlitt, Hayek, and Bastiat, understood the vital importance of the free market.

...It’s stunning to learn that after Reagan left Sacramento, Walter Cronkite offered him a twice-weekly five-minute slot on CBS to voice his views; later, under Carter, the same network gave Reagan free airtime to respond to a presidential speech on the Panama Canal, “something,” Schweikart rightly observes, ”that today would be unheard of.” As Schweikart sums it up: “Reagan in 1981 had a monumental edge that Donald Trump would not have in a similar situation thirty-five years later: while the media was overwhelmingly liberal and oppositional, it still played the game by the basic rules of journalism (or, at least, tried to appear to play by such rules).”

As this book counts down the years to Reagan’s presidency, it also gives us glimpses of the administrations he’s living through – of LBJ’s Great Society, which boosted welfare dependency and undermined the black family; of Nixon’s opening to the Kremlin, about which Brezhnev bragged in 1973: “We are achieving with détente what our predecessors have been unable to achieve using the mailed fist”; and of Ford, who, scared of offending Brehnev, refused to meet with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, leading Reagan (who generally eschewed even the mildest profanity) to refer to him as a “goddamned horse’s ass.” Then there’s Carter, who gets a whole chapter to himself – a delicious indictment of “the first president in American history to blame the American people themselves for whatever problems they faced.” Not only did Carter, in his inaugural address, congratulate Americans for shaking off their “inordinate fear of communism” (this, Schweikart points out, “at the very time the Soviet empire was expanding”); his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, actually bragged to Time that Carter and Brezhnev had “similar dreams and aspirations about the most fundamental issues.” In any event, it was the accumulated social and economic consequences of these predecessors’ policy blunders, capped off by Carter’s utter incompetence and passivity, that delivered the White House to Reagan – a beneficiary, as Schweikart puts it, of the same “populist boil against the ‘Establishment’” that would later lead Trump to victory.

...Soviet officials would later admit he was right: they had been running an evil empire. Know-it-alls in the U.S. thought Reagan’s rhetoric threatened to “destabilize” U.S.-USSR relations (“stability” being, then and now, the Deep State’s top desideratum); but in fact that very rhetoric shook Soviet elites’ self-esteem to the core. Similarly, the U.S. media mocked Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which they nicknamed Star Wars – but it, too, unsettled the Soviets. So did the decisiveness with which he fired America’s striking air-traffic controllers in 1981 and responded to the 1983 Cuban invasion of Grenada. Schweikart quotes an internal Soviet document which acknowledged that Reagan had “restored Americas belief that it is capable of achieving a lot” and that he was “giving America what it has been yearning for. Optimism. Self-belief. Heroes.” How interesting that the Kremlin had his measure then – and feared and respected him accordingly – whereas many on the American left, even now, continue to dismiss him. For so effectively setting the record straight, and for giving Reagan the credit he deserves for setting aright the American Ship of State, Larry Schweikart deserves our immense gratitude.

Read more here.

"Crazy like a fox?"

There are many posts being written about Trump taking a call from the leader of Taiwan. Matt Lewis writes at Roll Call,

This was, I daresay, Reaganesque.

James Strock, author of “Reagan on Leadership,” had this to say: “Like Reagan, Trump was elected in large part to change the way Washington works. Reagan constantly challenged the status quo through his communications, formal and informal. In their introductory meeting, the new president asked the legendary chair of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, why a Fed was needed at all. This sent shockwaves across official Washington — even as it appeared eminently reasonable to many ordinary Americans who are accustomed to justifying their value in the workplace.”

“It indicated several things about the new president,” Strock said. “He was not going to be a captive of the political establishment, including the permanent bureaucracy and mainstream media. And he had confidence in his own judgment and instincts.”

Regarding Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s president, Strock said: “By the one phone call with the president of Taiwan, President-elect Trump is asserting a similar independence of action and thought. It will likely be greeted as bracingly refreshing to many ordinary Americans — while shaking up a lot of the Washington establishment.”

...Thirty-five years ago, dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was snubbed by Gerald Ford (per Henry Kissinger’s advice) for fear of upsetting the Soviets, before Reagan came along and embraced him.

...But this is America. We shouldn’t be walking around, afraid of our own shadow.

The prudent scholar in the latter half of the 20th century might have suggested detente and containment. Instead, Reagan called the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire,” vowed to “leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history,” joked on a hot mic about “bombing [Russia] in five minutes,” and told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

And guess what? It was the right thing to do, even if few of the so-called experts at the time would have advised it. But Reagan’s moral clarity about the Soviets was a risky, if calculated, gambit that upset the establishment.

...From breaking protocol to eschewing the conventional wisdom of governmental bureaucrats, Donald Trump (like Reagan) is seen as a cowboy. And he may likewise benefit from being underestimated and feared. Could it be that there is a method to his madness? Could Trump be crazy like a fox?

Read more here.

Something similar is going to happen this year.

"Just an actor"

Bookworm writes,

Those of us around in 1980 vividly remember the media attack on Reagan. The funniest one, in retrospect, was the charge that Reagan was “just an actor” — this from the same political party that can’t get enough of actors spouting their political opinions about candidates, national security, climate change, etc. We were warned about other things, though: that he was crazy, unstable, stupid, untried, a loose cannon, just a talking head, a decadent man who had divorced his first wife, etc.

Reading that list, does any of it sound familiar to you? We live in a sleazier, bigger, bolder, more degraded internet age, and Trump is a less polished man than Reagan so the attack is more savage and biased, but it’s still the same old, same old.

Reagan also caused a schism in the Republican party, not as severe as the one now, but still pretty darn good. Because he was a populist, he lost the elite Republicans but gained those Democrats who didn’t think Carter’s internationalist policies and lack of faith in America served them well economically or kept them safe.

Remember?

When principles mattered

Did Reagan endorse Ford in 1976? No, says Reagan biographer Craig Shirley.

In Kansas City, by every estimate, Reagan was finished politically. The only thing he could control was how he said goodbye. He was comfortable leaving quietly but Ford pushed him into a spotlight he never sought. In that moment he chose to go out, not publicly bitter, defeated, or angry but hopeful. He went out affirming “a platform of bold unmistakable colors with no pastel shades.” He chose to leave the stage, not a supplicant to a party line or to an accidental president, but as a principled man affirming a party that had chosen someone else. He knew there was no limit to what this movement could do or where it could go, and it didn’t matter who got the credit. The principle mattered most and the Party and conservatism mattered, not the person.

Read more here.

72 years ago today

No one on this earth needs to watch this video more than Barack Obama.


Why do I say this about Obama? Frances Martel reports in Breitbart,

In his speech in Hiroshima Friday, President Obama described the bombing of Hiroshima as an “evil” and alleged that “every great religion… [has had] believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill.”

In 1984 Muhammed Ali endorsed President Reagan for re-election, saying, “He’s keeping God in schools and that’s enough,” Ali told reporters when asked to elaborate on his endorsement, as the New York Times reported in 1984.

Comparing Obama to Reagan?

At Powerline Steven Hayward takes on those who compare Obama's negotiations with Iran with Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev:

Remember one salient fact: Reagan eventually got a deal on his terms—including vigorous on-site weapons inspections that the Soviets had previously refused—by walking away from the table in Reykjavik and hanging tough on his missile defense program. (The Soviets caved on all points within a few months.) Dionne and others conveniently forget that at the time liberals were outraged that Reagan walked away from the table, while conservatives said it was his finest hour.

Reagan’s defense buildup and tough stance led the Soviets to recognize that they could not keep up, and that it was in their interest to reach significant arms reduction deals. But again—liberals like Dionne were outraged at Reagan’s arms buildup at the time, and uniformly blasted SDI. And the first half of this paragraph is wrong: it was Reagan’s prolonged stubbornness that weakened Kremlin hardliners: if Reagan had given in on SDI or on-site inspections, as the hardliners demanded Gorbachev get from him at Reykjavik, they would have been strengthened at home. It was precisely because Gorbachev came home empty-handed that he was able to tell his “hard-liners” that the game was up. Transcripts of post-Reykjavik Politburo meetings make this crystal clear.

Among other howlers, after having prattled on about her concern for human rights, Pelosi pushes back at a reporter’s question about why Kerry didn’t get the four Americans that Iran is holding on trumped up charges released as part of the deal. Pelosi squirms a bit and suggests it is a separate issue: “This is a nuclear agreement,” and not a suitable forum for human rights issues.

Once again, if liberals really wanted to follow the Reagan model, they’d recall that at every summit Reagan always passed a list of specific names of political prisoners we wanted released from Soviet jails. Even at Reykjavik, amidst the tense discussions about strategic nuclear warheads, Reagan still did this. Did John Kerry ever press the issue of human rights in general, or the four American in particular, in the Vienna talks? Someone should ask the State Department and the White House this question directly.

Read more here.

The new normal

Victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review,

For a time, reset, concessions, and appeasement work to delay wars. But finally, nations wake up, grasp their blunders, rearm, and face down enemies.

...Hitler figured that for a decade America had been unarmed and isolationist. Britain repeatedly had appeased the Third Reich. The Soviets initially collaborated with Hitler.

...Hitler met no opposition after militarizing the Rhineland. He annexed Austria with impunity. He gobbled up Czechoslovakia without opposition. Why shouldn’t Hitler have been stunned in 1939 when exasperated Britain and France finally declared war over his invasion of distant Poland? Six years of war and some 60 million dead followed, re-establishing what should have been the obvious fact that democracies would not quite commit suicide.

By 1979, the Jimmy Carter administration had drastically cut the defense budget. Carter promised that he would make human rights govern American foreign policy. It sounded great to Americans after Vietnam — and even greater to America’s enemies. Then Iran imploded. The American embassy in Tehran was stormed. Diplomats were taken hostage. Radical Islamic terrorism spread throughout the Middle East. Communist insurrection followed throughout Central America. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. China went into Vietnam. Dictators such as the Soviet Union’s Leonid Brezhnev and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini assumed that Carter no longer was willing to protect the U.S. postwar order. Or perhaps they figured that the inexperienced American president was too weak to respond even had he wished to do so.

Then, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in 1980 on the promise of restoring U.S. power. At first, both America’s friends and enemies were aghast at Reagan’s simplistic worldview that free markets were better than Communism, that democracy was superior to dictatorship, and that in the ensuring struggle, the West would win and the rest would lose.

Barack Obama, like Carter, came into office promising a sharp break from past U.S foreign policy. The public was receptive after the costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent financial meltdown on Wall Street.

Troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan on pre-announced deadlines. The post-surge quiet in Iraq fooled Obama into eagerly yanking out all U.S. peacekeepers. A new outreach to radical Islam went to ridiculous lengths. The Muslim Brotherhood was invited to Obama’s speech in Cairo that claimed the West owed cultural debts to Islam for everything from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.

Terms like radical Islam, jihad, and Islamic terror were excised from the official American vocabulary and replaced by a host of silly euphemisms. In symbolic tours, Obama offered apologies for past American behavior in the Middle East and Asia. He bowed to both theocratic sheiks and the Asian monarchs. The defense budget was cut. Reset with Vladimir Putin’s Russia assumed that the Bush administration, not Putin’s prior aggression in Georgia and threats to Crimea, had caused the estrangement between Moscow and Washington.

Predictable chaos followed as the U.S. became an observer abroad. The Islamic State appeared to fill the vacuum in Iraq. Syria imploded. So did most of North Africa. Iran sent agents, surrogates, and special forces into Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, even as it pressed on to get a bomb.

China stepped up its violations of the waters and airspace of America’s traditional Asian allies. Putin did the same in Eastern and Northern Europe.

By 2015, America’s enemies had created chaos and defined it as the new normal.

The next president will face a terrible dilemma. To restore order, he or she will have to convince our allies that we are recommitted to their security.

Any red lines issued will have to be enforced. Aggressors such as Russia, China, Iran, and the Islamic State will have to be warned to cease and desist or face pushback from far stronger U.S.-led coalitions. Just as Reagan’s return to normal U.S. foreign policy was considered radical after the Carter years, so too the next administration will be smeared as dangerously provocative after Obama’s recession from the world stage.

The Obama foreign policy cannot continue much longer without provoking even more chaos or a large war. Yet correcting it will be nearly as dangerous. Jumping off the global tiger is dangerous, but climbing back on will seem riskier.

Read more here.

Reaganesque? I don't think so.

Charles Krauthammer writes that

A real U.S. president would give Kiev the weapons it needs, impose devastating sectoral sanctions on Moscow, reinstate our Central European missile-defense system and make a Reaganesque speech explaining why.

All domination must end. But after how much devastation? If you leave it to the forces of history to repel aggression and redeem injustice, what's the point of politics?

The arc of history may indeed bend toward justice, Mr. President. But, as you say, the arc is long. The job of a leader is to shorten it. Otherwise, why do we need a president? And why did you seek to become ours?

Something big got broken here

Former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan analyzes what has happened between Russia and the West.

The Soviet Union fell almost a quarter-century ago. It was great news, a victory for civilization. That fall was followed by something: a series of governments trying to maintain stability and pick up the pieces, turning toward democracy, toward modernity, really going for a non-state-dominated economy. Russian leaders were to some significant degree accommodating to the West, which had vanquished them. They engaged in reconstruction on many fronts, reinvention too. They moved in varying degrees toward Western values.

Again, it lasted almost a quarter century.

Now it is over.

That history has ended and something new has begun. Now we are in an era so new we don’t even have a name for it. Maybe we’ll call it “Putinism,” maybe “Cold War II,” who knows—but it’s brand new and it’s different from the past not only in tone but in nature, character and, presumably, intent.

The Russian government isn’t trying to please us or work with us anymore. Mr Putin has formally set himself as our antagonist. Something big got broken here. It will have world-wide implications, and be a major foreign-policy challenge for the United States in the coming years.

I do think Reagan would be startled—that isn’t quite the word, because it doesn’t encompass a sense of horror—that it clearly won’t be the American president leading the West through the start of the new era, but a German chancellor.

Read more here.

THEY KEEP ASKING, “WHAT SHOULD OBAMA DO ABOUT UKRAINE”? WELL, I SAY “NOTHIN’”!

Guest post
By Curt Dale

The media anchors keep wringing their hands and asking, “What should Obama do about Ukraine”? and I vehemently reply, “Nothin’”! I really don’t want him to do anything. Tell me one thing Barry has ever done that he didn’t totally foul up, and if he touches this, he will screw it up even worse than he already has. Please consider what he’s done in 5 years and find one thing that he hasn’t turned into a total catastrophe: rendered our great military essentially ineffective in 5 years though cuts, by firing the good generals and admirals; Obamacare is a disaster; Bailout was a disaster; Insurance bailout a pending disaster; Benghazi absolutely traitorous; turned into an essential terrorist organization; IRS; ignoring Keystone pipeline has cost most of us much of our income; gasoline prices (doubled to tripled); his EPA has created mass destruction though manmade disasters; essentially destroyed “balance of power” in our government; enormously enhanced illegal immigration; shovel ready jobs weren’t; destroyed respect for the Oval Office and the Office of the Presidency; messing up on Syria by doing nothing; fouling up the withdrawal from Iraq, and Iran, making a fool of himself about Guantanamo Bay; working to destroy Israel; destroying the respect of other nations for America; ad infinitum.

Barack Hussein Obama has no sense of history, no sense of the actual world situation, and would have no idea of how to take action. Keep in mind that Sarah Palin told us this Ukraine scenario was highly probably when she was running for Vice President. But he and his lot poo-pooed her. Now, here it is on Obama’s plate, and he has vastly weakened the U. S. Military to the degree that he does not have the ability to respond militarily. Frankly, even if Obama had sufficient military, he doesn’t know how to employ it, and has chosen new generals and admirals who are such sycophants that they probably couldn’t help much either.

With the 20,000 plus Russian troops who have moved into The Crimea already and others standing by to move into the eastern Ukraine at Putin’s whim, Obama is caught with his bare, er, uh, face hanging out, lookin’ and soundin’ dumber than dirt, and letting Lurch Kerry blabber like an idiot about what powerful things the US can do. We generally can’t do squat, folks.

When I was in the Air War College, we studied the Folda Gap Scenario as a possibility of how the USSR could take over Europe. It would have been a monstrous battle, but we’d have had a good chance of winning. Now, Obama has wiped out that advantage through his total disdain for military power and ignorance of what its value is to national security and international leverage. He just threw it all away in a few short months. I don’t know whether to laugh at Obama’s stupidity or to cry at the horrible results of his stupidity.

Obama said, today, that, this move by Putin ‘will be a costly proposition for Russia.” Hey, dummy! Thus far, without firing a shot, 16,000 Russian troops have walked into the Crimea, and took over a major part of a nation. Free, too! Does taking over the assets of this magnificent 10,000 square mile peninsula with a whole coast line of ports, coves and bays on the Black Sea, and operating year round seaport for the Russian Navy, airbases, and a strategic location, all priceless, seem to be a “costly proposition for Russia?” Costly to Russia, Mr. President! Not quite. Actually “priceless proposition for Russia”! Barry, sounded like the incompetent boob he is, today. It is “almost” painful for me to refer to the President of the United States in such terms. I didn’t even say that about LBJ, Carter or Clinton. They had not reached that low level but Obama fully qualifies for the description.

Obama set himself up for this situation over the past 5 years. And he also set up a marvelous chess move for Putin. Putin can move right into the eastern Ukraine, and he probably has Poland quaking in its boots, Romania can be just as easy a conquest, and Turkey is pretty much fair game if Putin wishes. Obama has helped decimate the EU and NATO forces, so what will they do to slow down Putin? Consider also that Putin’s just signed a pact with China that doubles his ante in many ways. Will China now make the same move into Taiwan to reclaim it? I wonder what warning Obama will give to China when it makes its move? Maybe economic sanctions against China? Oh, keep in mind that they just about own us, guys, with the trillions of debt we have. Not much leverage left there, huh?

I and millions of others fought the Cold War successfully to the point Ronald Reagan was able to say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall”! And, Gorbachev did. Vladamir Putin is poised to put the USSR back together. And all Obama does is talk!

So, what should Obama do? I’ll make two suggestions. First, shut his yap, and quit making it worse! Second, resign?

Colonel Curtis D. Dale, PhD, USAF (Ret)

The President's Secret Service

Here are some excerpts from Ronald Kessler's book In the President's Secret Service. Thanks to The Conservative Angle blog and Before Its News.

JOHN & JACQUELINE KENNEDY
*A philanderer of the highest order. *
*She ordered the kitchen help to save all the left-over wine during a State dinner, mixed it with fresh wine and served again during the next White House occasion.*

LYNDON & LADYBIRD JOHNSON
*Another philanderer of the highest order. In addition, LBJ was as crude as the day is long. Both JFK and LBJ kept a lot of women in the White House for extramarital affairs and both had set up early warning systems to alert them if/when their wives were nearby. Both were promiscuous and oversexed men.*
*She was either naive or just pretended to not know about her husband’s many liaisons.*

RICHARD & PAT NIXON
*A “moral” man but very odd, weird, paranoid. He had a horrible relationship with his family and was almost a recluse.*
*She was quiet most of the time.*

GERALD & BETTY FORD
*A true gentlemen who treated the Secret Service with respect and dignity. He had a great sense of humor. *
*She drank a lot!*

JIMMY & ROSALYN CARTER
*A complete phony who would portray one picture of himself to public and very different in private e.g. would be shown carrying his own luggage but the suitcases were always empty. He kept empty ones just for photo ops. He wanted people to see him as pious and a non-drinker but he and his family drank alcohol a lot! He had disdain for the Secret Service and was very irresponsible with the “football” with nuclear codes. He didn’t think it was a big deal and would keep military aides at a great distance. Often did not acknowledge the presence of Secret Service personnel assigned to serve him.*
*She mostly did her own thing.*

RONALD & NANCY REAGAN
*The real deal, moral, honest, respectful and dignified. They treated Secret Service and everyone else with respect and honor, thanked everyone all the time. He took the time to know everyone on a personal level. One favorite story was early in his Presidency when he came out of his room with a pistol tucked on his hip. The agent in charge asked: “Why the pistol, Mr. President?” He replied, “In case you boys can’t get the job done, I can help.” It was common for him to carry a pistol. When he met with Gorbachev, he had a pistol in his briefcase.
*She was very nice but very protective of the President and the Secret Service was often caught in the middle. She tried hard to control what he ate. He would say to the agent, “Come on, you gotta help me out.” The Reagans drank wine during State dinners and special occasions only otherwise they shunned alcohol. The Secret Service could count on one hand the times they were served wine during family dinner. For all the fake bluster of the Carters, the Reagans were the ones who lived life as genuinely moral people.*

GEORGE H. & BARBARA BUSH
*Extremely kind and considerate, always respectful. Took great care in making sure the agents’ comforts were taken care of. They even brought them meals. One time she brought warm clothes to agents standing outside at Kennebunkport. One was given a warm hat and, when he tried to say “no thanks” even though he was obviously freezing, the President said “Son, don’t argue with the First Lady. Put the hat on.” He was the most prompt of the Presidents. He ran the White House like a well-oiled machine.*
*She ruled the house and spoke her mind.*

BILL & HILLARY CLINTON
*Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy. He was nice mainly because he wanted everyone to like him but to him life is just one big game and party. Everyone knows about his sexuality.*
*She is another phony. Her personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. She was another who felt people were there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton.*

ALBERT GORE
* An egotistical ass who was once overheard by his Secret Service detail lecturing his son that he needed to do better in school or he would end up like these guys, pointing to the agents.*

GEORGE W. & LAURA BUSH
*The Secret Service loved him and Laura Bush. He was also the most physically in shape who had a very strict workout regimen. The Bushes made sure their entire administrative and household staff understood that they were to respect and be considerate of the Secret Service.*
*She was one of the nicest First Ladies, if not the nicest. She never had any harsh word to say about anyone.*

*BARACK & MICHELLE OBAMA
*Clinton all over again – hates the military and looks down on the Secret Service. He is egotistical and cunning. He looks you in the eye and appears to agree with you but turns around and does the opposite. He has temper tantrums.*
*She is a complete bitch who basically hates anybody who is not black, hates the military and looks at the Secret Service as servants.

Much more than just a welfare queen

She stole his color t.v.!

That's what one of Linda Taylor's eight husbands told Detective Jack Sherwin. Taylor was the "Welfare Queen" Ronald Reagan talked about when running for president in 1976.

“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.

“If she wanted to be a ho, she could be a ho. If she wanted to be a princess, she could be a princess,”

Josh Levin has written an incredibly exhaustive piece on Taylor in Slate; surely worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.

It took a crew of cops nearly 20 hours to count all the cash. There were coins and bills stuffed in the furniture, sheathed in piles of clothes, and stuffed inside laundry bags, pillowcases, cardboard boxes, and an old foot locker. A deputy superintendent said that it was the biggest haul he’d come across in 23 years on the force. The final tally: $763,223.30.

That description was of money found in the house of a Chicago hustler who ran a policy racket. Taylor tried to get that money when he died.

Levin writes,

For Linda Taylor, people were consumable goods, objects to cultivate, manipulate, and discard. Once she’d extracted something of value—an identity, a check, a life insurance claim—she’d move on to someone else. No matter her circumstances, and no matter her surroundings, there was always a new target.

What kind of person behaves this way? In the 1970s, psychologist Robert Hare developed a checklist to assess a given subject’s personality. The symptoms on Hare’s list read like a catalog of Linda Taylor’s known behaviors and personal characteristics: glib and superficial charm, pathological lying, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, frequent short-term relationships, and criminal versatility.

Saying exactly what he thinks

I urge you to watch this video, if you have not seen it.

If the treatment is killing your patients, you stop the treatment!

Do you want it enough?

Obama: a national Rorschach test

It's my job to call a folly a folly.

You're betraying your whole life if you don't say exactly what you think; and if you don't say it honestly and bluntly.

Let's not forget the role of Reagan and Thatcher in ending apartheid

The Ulsterman Report shows how Ronald Reagan's policies of "Constructive Engagement" helped topple apartheid in South Africa and pave the way for Nelson Mandela's Presidency.

After eight years of Ronald Reagan’s policies of “constructive engagement” that worked to prepare the volatile nation to peacefully embrace true self rule, apartheid fell.

Just as communism fell. Just as the Berlin Wall fell.

Nelson Mandela took it from there, and after four years as President of South Africa, when he then willingly gave up his authority and made himself a living, breathing example of democracy, Nelson Mandela proved himself more than deserving of the opportunity Ronald Reagan and others had given him and his reborn nation.