Daughter: Reagan no longer able to communicate

I think we all pretty much know where everyone stands on President Bush.




After reading this article today, I was wondering what everyone thought of Ronald Reagan as a President ?

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis wants people to have a clear understanding of what Alzheimer's disease has done to the 92-year-old former president.

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/05/reagan.illness.ap/index.html]http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/05/reagan.illness.ap/index.html[/ur l]

This article didn't go into much detail, I was still just wondering what everyone else thought of him ?

Regan was one of our greatest presidents ever, and one of the most powerful.

Reagan was a hard headed republican asshole, whose wife increased the failed war on drugs effort 100 fold. I never cared for him, or Nancy.

while his presidency was well before my time, from what ive heard he was one of our most powerful and influential leaders. i do agree however, his wife did put far too much backing into the war on drugs, which has failed miserably. its just a hush-hush op about how badly theyre losing it now, and how much taxpayer dollars are being funnelled into its miserable cause. they dont want anyone to experience new things, they dont want change. sorry for the rant but thats a peeve of mine.

You mean under Nancy? Lets see under Reagon we lost a # load of jobs. Had 17% intrest rates. Huge scandals Iran Contra CIA drug running etc. He deregulated most of the industries so the elite was able to steal even more. He ran up a huge federal deficit. Sad thing is overall he is still 10 times better the Bush Jr. could ever be and he did nothing worse then any other modern president we had. Hat's off to Reagon I think he meant well and it's sad to see him off his rocker.

[Edited on 5-12-2003 by DiRtYDeViL]

it's sad that he has reached 92 and is still living with such an awful disease. Does anyone know when he was first diagnosed with it?

He was my first vote. At the time, I was a gunho Young Republican.
I've grown up since then. Seen the world for what it is, seen military life for what it is under political leadership that is the extension of corporate interests, and been educated both via the school of hard knocks & academia.

What have I found?

Reagan was a horrible president with one caveat: he was a stellar speaker. In that capacity, he has few equels.
In the application of his governance:
- he delgated everything & cared about zero detail
- he did nothing but spend like crazy, growing deficits like they were stink weed
- he delayed AIDS research at every possible turn, facilitating the spread to the Hetro community
- he is credited with the "winning of the Cold War", when in actuality, all that happened was a Communist ideology not being able to compete in a capitalistic world model & it imploded.

I can trace one death & nearly a second in my family as a direct result of his social & military policies. Or more specifically, those who were actually running the country while he was suffering from Alzheimers.

His legacy, though supressed by battles with a Republican Congress for 8 yrs under Clinton, are manifested in our scandals today.

In the 80's as a kid I wrote a letter to the White House. Reagan was then president and I really liked him. He seemed nice, honnest and friendly. Of course I didn't know anything about politics so I don't know if he was good or bad. Too bad I never got a letter back. He was probably too busy
I don't know if I would have written a letter if George W. would have been president at that time. Probably not.

[- he is credited with the "winning of the Cold War", when in actuality, all that happened was a Communist ideology not being able to compete in a capitalistic world model & it imploded.

Can't agree with this. He was instrumental in ending the Cold War. He was full-on for the star wars defence initiative which, if it works properly, will theoretically allow western powers to launch nuclear strikes against their enemies without fear of retaliation.

Up until that point, both superpowers were about even.
The USSR was virtually bankrupt and didn't have a hope in hell of competing with SDI, and so the cold war was won by Reagan.

Since Reagan was an actor my opinion of him is that he was very much a puppet for other powers. His ability to speak came naturally from being an actor and so he did earn his "great communicator" status on his own. Thats about all I can say about the man as I really don't respect any politician coming from such a background.

[Edited on 12-12-2003 by heelstone]

In the eighties, Ronald Reagan has closed the window of vulnerability and showed that Soviet Union was not all powerfull. He " told " them ( the Soviet and the commies ), if you do a move or try to trick us, we'll smash you DEFINITIVELY. Thank you Mr President.

In my ( european ) opinion, he has been the best President since Kennedy and saved the freeworld from the commie threat.

For the rest ( economic...etc...) I've no idea.

All things considered, Reagan was a great president, one of the best. His success kills liberals, they can't stand it!

BT, that�s just crazy talk! (except for the part about him being a great speaker, you are right about that)

He did win the cold war! And, if he the Soviet Union was already in collapse I wonder why the liberals were writing about how well the SU was doing, how well their economy was, etc, etc. Only after Reagan defeated them did they start saying 'oh, well, their economy was going down hill anyway' blah. Give credit where credit is do. Liberal myths collide when they talk about Reagan in terms of economy and bankrupting the Soviet Union. If Reagan ruined our economy like some say, how could we have afforded to bankrupt economy?

We once lived under the threat of soviet expansion and nuclear annihilation, now we don�t. Liberals wanted d�tente and containment [and, they couldn�t even do that right] Reagan wanted to win and we won.

The Day After generation in survey after survey thought they would see nuclear war in their lifetime.

I credit Reagen for the popularity of apathy and punk music.

I also think Bush was really President for 12 years, not 4.

Anyone following the newly released Nixon tapes? Man Dick NAILS Reagen over and over. Then says don't give Ronzo too much credit for 'winning' diddley. Would have happened anyway from the earlier efforts of better men!

I was never much for him as a politician, but I did respect him as a person (few foolish statements aside)


I feel for any family who has to suffer such deterioration of a loved one...

I can't imagine the heartache of someone you've known your whole forgetting who you are

...it does not net out any other way.
Nixon was spot on in his assessment on Reagan's capabilities, or lack there of.
He is a lighting rod Icon for the Right because of that toublesome inability to form coherent sentences in debate without descending into grunts,....he didn't do that!
The SU already had a democratic ground swell colliding with communisms incontinence - it was either change or be dead. That they backed away from the arms race table with a healthy-amount-of-destroy-the-world-a-hundred-times-over-chips is to their credit and our detriment. We were the idiots swallowing it as a great move by Ronnie, when all he was doing was feeding the beast known as the Military Industrial Complex.

BUT

That they worship such a piece of # speaks volumes on their swallowing of the Bush "Clear Moral Vision" fairy tale.

Originally posted by Bob88
All things considered, Reagan was a great president, one of the best. His success kills liberals, they can't stand it!

Do we brandish Jefferson or FDR in your face?

Prince wrote a song about Reagan :

how many of you remember,

"Ronnie Talk to Russia" ?

it goes :

Ronnie talk to russia..


Ronnie Talk to Russia
before it's too late

Ronnie Talk to Russia
before it's too late

Ronnie Talk to Russia
before it's too late

Before they blow up the world....