Rewriting Reagan鈥檚 History
Ask any Republican and they’ll tell you there’s only been one perfect president in the history of the Republic – Ronald Reagan.
That St. Ronnie never raised taxes – except when he did in 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.
They’ll try to convince you that Reagan would’ve never given amnesty to undocumented workers – even though he gave amnesty to three million of them in 1986.
You’ll even hear some Republicans brag that Reagan’s use of executive orders (381) was much lower than President Obama’s (182).
Unless 182 is a higher number than 381 (I’m fairly certain it isn’t), Reagan, contrary to the current Republican balderdash, was far more the “imperial president” than Obama.
Now comes the latest Republican effort to paint Obama as a shirker of his presidential responsibilities, while, at the same time, they praise for Reagan as the standard for all presidents suitable for placement on Mt. Rushmore.
What a crock.
It was predictable that soon after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on July 17, Republicans would claim that Obama’s response wasn’t quick or strong enough.
The president offered his initial response hours after the first reports of the tragedy, while he was aboard Air Force One headed to campaign events in New York and Delaware.
Then, the following day, he appeared in the White House briefing room and delivered his response in-person.
Yet, there was an immediate comparison between Obama’s response, and Reagan’s to the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by the Soviet Union in 1983.
“President Reagan was on vacation in CA when KA007 was shot down. He immediately canceled all events and flew back to Washington,” tweeted Red State’s Erick Erickson.
In other words, Reagan had dropped everything to devote his fullest attention to that villainous attack, but Obama was too busy playing politics to care.
Republican strategist Kate Obenshain echoed Erickson’s comparison between Reagan and Obama.
“President Reagan rushed home from Santa Barbara vacation, from the Reagan ranch when the Korean jetliner was shot out of the air by the Russians,” Obenshain said.
Soon, Republicans everywhere seemed convinced they’d finally had proof that Obama, the went-golfing-while-America-is-burning-president, isn’t worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Reagan, unless to prove his unworthiness to hold high office.
But there’s a flaw in their analysis.
Ronald Reagan was slow to react to that tragedy.
While 53 Americans had perished in the Korean Airlines crash, but one American died in the Malaysia Airlines crash – it took Reagan much longer to make his true feelings known about it.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace saw, firsthand, how Reagan had been reluctant to respond.
“I was covering Reagan at that time. He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when this happened, and quite frankly he didn’t want to leave. And his advisors realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he must fly back Washington; had to make this speech to the nation. But it did take him four days,” Wallace told his stunned co-workers on Fox and Friends.
Not only that, Wallace actually did something that hardly happens on Fox News – he defended Obama’s actions.
“I know there’s like an immediate reaction, that you want to say he should have run back to Washington and gone back to the Situation Room. I know that a lot of folks at Fox here are saying that. As somebody who covered the White House and saw for six years Ronald Reagan in various situations, sometimes the best thing presidents can do is nothing, to continue on,” Wallace said.
Reagan had been on a 25-day vacation back in 1983. He admitted in his own diary, that he was hesitant to end it three days early to fly back to Washington.
If Obama would ever go on a vacation that long today, Sarah Palin would call for his impeachment.
Come to think of it, isn’t it ironic that the people who complain the most about the time Obama takes away from the Oval Office, are the ones who’d like to remove him from the Oval Office?
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net