This is what happens when liberals don’t stand up to criminals:
Former US President Ronald Reagan has been voted the “greatest American” of all time by his fellow citizens.
Mr Reagan, who died last year aged 93, topped a list of 10 contenders, which featured six former presidents.
He edged out Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Some of the most notable names of US history such as Albert Einstein and Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, did not make the top 10.
You can blame the media, or our schools, but I blame Tip O’Neill and Jim Wright:
When citizens first learned of the Iran-Contra Affair, they already had strongly negative views toward Iran, but were more divided over the Contras. Citizens’ responses to the revelations were swift and long lasting. Opinion polls showed a large, nearly immediate drop in President Reagan’s popularity. Job approval ratings went from 64% to 46% in November 1986, the largest single drop ever recorded. Polls also showed increases in public disapproval, with 32% disapproving in January 1987 and 48% in June of that year. During 1987, as two investigations were completed, public approval remained stable at about 50%. While Reagan’s job approval ratings snowed some improvement, they never fully rebounded (Schneider 1986,1987; Fried 1997, 83). However, there was never majority support for impeachment and removal from office. Thus the denouement-to investigate, but not to impeach-was broadly consistent with public opinion.
In spite of this, neither O’Neill nor Wright pursued articles of impeachment. This not only allowed Reagan to regain his popularity, but it allowed George Herbert Walker Bush to win the Republican nomination and, subsequently, the Presidency.
Conversely, the Republicans’ decision to impeach Clinton severely tarnished his legacy and badly weakened Al Gore.
Reagan is the greatest American of all time? That is what happens when you try to fight Republicans with one hand tied behind your back.
Pretty funny that this post comes after the Fake News bit.
Let’s see – you had to watch the Discovery channel or use AOL to even know that this poll existed. That sure says loads about their combined audiences.
And elected as their greatest Canadian the guy responsible for their national health care system.
Tells you something, hunh? (shaking head)
Reagan, the Teflon shell, the empty suit, the B list actor. The greatest American?
Only if history is no longer taught in our schools. Only if it’s more important to look good than to have a clue. Only if we’ve fallen all the way through the looking glass.
Crap. I want my America back.
It’s ridiculous. Even SADDAM preferred Reagan as president. What does that tell you.
P.S. TEFLON is carcinogenic, the EPA has finally admitted … DuPont was forcing them to keep quiet, i think. It’s back to stainless steel + steel wool, kids!
cast iron, which not only cooks well, but it gives you needed iron in your diet….BTW you can get a set of three at KMart for about 10.00..
handy in case you need a weapon also.
Wow. If only we had a K-Mart. It closed when Wal-Mart built a store directly across the highway. Sigh. And, of course, nothing could make us go there! Next tmie we’re in Seattle, we’ll stop by K-Mart! Thanks for that tip!
That was my immediate thought, too.
The poll was Freeped.
Doesn’t matter. Reagan shouldn’t be in the top 10.
He shouldnt be in the top 10,000.
Maybe not even the top ten million.
Agreed.
I’m just disappointed Ed Gein didn’t make the top ten.
If Reagan is the Greatest American of All Time (he most certainly is not), then I would like to know how to denounce US citizenship.
Do you mean renounce? As in give it up?
Once you’re approved for permanent residency in another country, or if you already have dual citizenship, you go into the US embassy in that country and formally renounce your citizenship.
Probably have to fill out some forms. May have to take an oath. Don’t plan on coming back anytime soon.
The hard part is getting that permanent residency somewhere else.
Now how would I happen to know about all this?
Now, if you did mean denounce, all you do is log in to a website like this one and start typing away…
which doesn’t accept the notion that the American people elected Ronald Reagan to the Presidency. It’s like when someone is badly hurt and their body shuts down the pain receptors.
I feel for you, Ed. I could never accept that my fellow Californians elected him governor. I spent the 80’s (the presidency years) in total denial alternating with total rage. (Kinda like these OO’s, except now I don’t have the anesthetic of denial.)
I have the same problem w/ Bush…twice?
Maybe the poll was bogus, but I bet even it weren’t the results would be similar. And it’s a sad reflection on today’s Democratic party. If you discount Clinton, who hardly represented the liberal wing’s viewpoints, the next president back was Carter who doesn’t even show up on the list. And FDR, who most liberals would probably put high on the list, is tenth. MLK is the closest to a liberal icon on the list, and 30 years ago is not exactly recent.
Where are the contemporary American liberal heros?
WHO are the contemporary liberal heroes? I doubt we could agree on any. Kerry is too ‘waffling’, Dean is too controversial, Ralph Nader ‘cost Gore the election’, Jesse Jackson is also too controversial… I doubt the entire left wing could agree on who our heroes are.
Was Jimmy Carter on the list?
And still do. Yeah, W is worse, but we wouldn’t have W if we hadn’t had Reagan first, imo. That Ronnie-worship of last summer was nauseating and scary. Scary because it seemed right out of 1984. The only way I can maintain any hope for us is when I block that out.
That Ronnie Raygun is number one, is appalling, that he was even considered boggles my mind. He slept through 8 years of his presidency, oh that is the whole term. He allowed criminals to dictate foreign policy, had another criminal for his first AG. The only real positive thing he did, he did accidentally he pardoned, Mark Felt so I don’t hold him is such contempt any longer, just contempt.
I agree that O’Neil and Wright failed miserably in their roles as leaders of the Democratic party and Raygun clearly violated so many laws in his bid to become the hero of the west, only he wasn’t aware they were trying to make him the hero. I can only hope that an actual survey of all the American people would put Ronnie Raygun fully in his place as a great American and that would be never even making the list.
I actually kept flipping back to that show on Sunday night and was flabbergasted by the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, seriously, GEORGE W. BUSH was number SIX fer chrissakes… this whole thing was freeped to shit. And don’t forget they had Ann Coulter, Dennis Miller and Randy whatshisname from American Idol on the night before making cases for this person and that. A sham through and through this was.
i like the AOL poll that says the sun revolves around the planet earth.
I like the AOL poll that says the virgin mary likes to appear on grilled cheese sandwiches.
Reading the link (some of us do that, you know 🙂 it turns out only 2.4 million people voted in the Dicovery Channel/AOL poll or less than 1% of the population. The silliness of the whole thing is illustrated by the 6th place finish by President Bush – The Re-Run and the 8th place finish by Elvis Presley.
Elvis Presley?
Over Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams?
Huh?
Fairly obviously this was a contest where “Greatest” = “Most In the Mind (loosely speaking) of the People Who Voted.”
Oh, I’m sure some Republicans, and other half-wits, will trumpet the results as ‘proof’ of something or another but, in truth, the thing is meaningless.
as a poll – of course it is. But there’s still that coverage last summer. Think of all of the younger people that don’t know anything about RR except what they saw on TV then. As I said upthread, it scares me.
I find this almost laughable(almost)….here’s a guy who presided over one of the most corrupt/indicted administrations and somehow he ends up being greatest American? Talk about not knowing our history. Apparently America barely knows what really happened little over 20 years ago..him being the greatest American couldn’t have had anything to do with the weeklong 24/7 lovefest the news channels gave him when he died. Where they were ready to canonize him as a Saint right then/there. May as well make Bugsy Seigel a great American, after all he was the founder of Las Vegas. I think I’d opt for Chief Joseph or Chief Seattle myself.
And Elvis on the list?Come on-if he can be on the list than so can Lena Horne or Billie Holliday and no women but Oprah?(How about Mother Jones, Ida B.Wells-Barnett, Sojourner Truth, Margret Sanger, all the women in the suffragette movement, Emilia Earhart, Mae Jemison, Mary Cassatt, Fannie Lou Hamer and so on).
The whole thing is rather idiotically sad and certainly telling about the level of real information and history in the public consciousness.(and I’ll include myself in knowing way to little of our history).
We can make up a better list can’t we? 5 men/5 women.
I voted for Jefferson every chance I could, but alas, it was not enough.
the poll would never have been conducted because there’d be no United States of America.
Well, at least the “Greatest American” poll conducted in Europe got it right!
Homer Simpson, the beer-drinking, donut-scarfing, bumbling nuclear-power plant technician of the Fox cartoon “The Simpsons” is the leading choice in an online poll to be named the “greatest American.”
The animated buffoon ranks ahead of real-life heroes including Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
The poll is part of an upcoming broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation which will “confront the critical question at the heart of the 21st century – what does the world think of America?”
You (and Europe) have hit the nail on the head!
Otto’s Motto
The entire Dem establishment–including Sen. Joe Biden–came out loud and clear saying that impeachment was off the table even before any investigation began.
This immediate giveaway emboldened the Republicans even as public opinion continued turning against them. They devised a strategy of evasion that is still not fully understood to this day–and probably never will be. But a great deal of that strategy, if not its inner heart, is exposed by Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh (one of those principled Republicans you hear so much about, but rarely ever see), in his book Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.
This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to attain anything close to an objective understanding of the Reagan Administration, how it worked, and its true place in history.
But bear in mind–this was only one scandal complex that Reagan/Bush was involved in. It does not connect at all with the Afghan/Mujahadeen covert operations, which planted the seeds of al Qaeda, nor does it connect with the aid to Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran, nor with BCCI (the Bank of Crooks and Criminals)–none of which ever got anything close to the level of special prosecutor scrutiny they deserved.
In fact, Reagan is easily a top contender for worst President ever. Sure, GW tops him. But without Reagan, GW would never have had a chance.
Whatever folks think now, the judgement of history will certainly be harsh, however long it takes for the current propaganda wave to disintigrate. Nero will look good by comparison.
If Reagan is the greatest American of all time, all I can say is:
A toast to the people of Bolivia.
Si. And remember, our cheese is your cheese.
I wonder if we’re being too harsh … after all, if Reagan had never become president, I would never have learned that Ketchup is a Vegetable!
Or that trees are worse polluters than automobiles.