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Is Ronald Reagan the best President all time?

Was Ronald Reagan the best President of the all times?

  • I'm a right leaning American, yes

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • I'm a right leaning American, yes and the United Statss needs a President like him now

    Votes: 9 9.9%
  • I'm a left leaning American, yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I'm a left leaning American, yes and the United States needs a President like him now

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • I'm a right leaning American, no

    Votes: 23 25.3%
  • I'm a left leaning American, no

    Votes: 41 45.1%
  • I'm not from America, yes

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • I'm not from America, no

    Votes: 14 15.4%

  • Total voters
    91
That is interesting. When you speak with the conservative Republicans, a lot of them find Ronald Reagan was the best President in the 20th and 21t century.

In terms of conservative Republicans, there's not much competition.
 
You sure it wasn't Nancy's soothsayer? :2razz:

She was definitely the Rasputin in the equation. lol. But it is highly likely that others were making decisions for Reagan. And why not, they hid Roosevelt's condition from the public?
 
That is interesting. When you speak with the conservative Republicans, a lot of them find Ronald Reagan was the best President in the 20th and 21t century.

Your poll says otherwise.
 
"In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan's approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration. Longtime policy adversaries Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the deal, but Reagan, McFarlane and CIA director William Casey supported it. With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran. Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called "a hostage bazaar."

When the Lebanese newspaper "Al-Shiraa" printed an exposé on the clandestine activities in November 1986, Reagan went on television and vehemently denied that any such operation had occurred. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Despite the fact that Reagan defended the actions by virtue of their good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans believed the president when he said he had not traded arms for hostages.

While probing the question of the arms-for-hostages deal, Attorney General Edwin Meese discovered that only $12 million of the $30 million the Iranians reportedly paid had reached government coffers. Then-unknown Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council explained the discrepancy: he had been diverting funds from the arms sales to the Contras, with the full knowledge of National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter and with the unspoken blessing, he assumed, of President Reagan...."
The Iran-Contra Affair . Reagan . WGBH American Experience | PBS
 
I'm guessing history will prove Michelle has her beat.


Ya, she's got quite a punch. lol

ht_michelle_obama_workout_01_jc_150520_4x3_992.jpg
 
"The October Surprise conspiracy theory refers to an alleged plot to influence the outcome of the 1980 United States presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter (D–GA) and opponent Ronald Reagan (R–CA). One of the leading national issues during that year was the release of 52 Americans being held hostage in Iran since 4 November 1979.[1] Reagan won the election. On the day of his inauguration, in fact, 20 minutes after he concluded his inaugural address, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the release of the hostages. The timing gave rise to an allegation that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the election to thwart President Carter from pulling off an "October surprise". According to the allegation, the Reagan Administration rewarded Iran for its participation in the plot by supplying Iran with weapons via Israel and by unblocking Iranian government monetary assets in U.S. banks...several individuals—most notably former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr,[2] former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, former Naval intelligence officer and National Security Council member Gary Sick; and former Reagan/Bush campaign and White House staffer Barbara Honegger—have stood by the allegation. ...Iranian foreign minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh told Iran's parliament on 18 August 1980 that "another point to consider is this fact. We know that the Republican Party of the United States in order to win the presidential election is working hard to delay the solution of the hostages crisis until after the U.S. election."[28]..."It is now very clear that there were two separate agreements, one the official agreement with Carter in Algeria, the other, a secret agreement with another party, which, it is now apparent, was Reagan. They made a deal with Reagan that the hostages should not be released until after Reagan became president. So, then in return, Reagan would give them arms. We have published documents which show that U.S. arms were shipped, via Israel, in March, about 2 months after Reagan became president."
—Former Iranian President Banisadr[50]..

In early 1993, after the House of Representatives taskforce report had been sent to print, a request for information from the Russian government was met with a 6-page report. This "stated, as fact, that Casey, George Bush and other Republicans had met secretly with Iranian officials in Europe during the 1980 presidential campaign. The Russians depicted the hostage negotiations that year as a two-way competition between the Carter White House and the Reagan campaign to outbid one another for Iran's cooperation on the hostages....Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir and former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe both affirmed the allegations true, while "retired Israeli General Yehoshua Saguy, who was head of Israeli military intelligence in 1980, said Prime Minister Menachem Begin claimed American approval for Israel's secret 1980 weapons shipments to Iran. But the approval had not come from President Carter, who had angrily objected to the shipments when he learned of them."[52]....Shamir, who was Israeli foreign minister in 1980, raised the October Surprise issue in an interview in 1993, saying that he had read Gary Sick's "interesting" book. He was asked "What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?"; "'Of course, it was,' Shamir responded without hesitation. 'It was.'".....Barbara Honegger was a member of the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign team and Reagan White House policy analyst.... In 1987, in the context of the Iran-Contra investigations, Honegger was reported as saying that shortly after 22 October 1980, when Iran abruptly changed the terms of its deal with Carter, a member of the Reagan campaign told her "We don't have to worry about an 'October surprise.' Dick cut a deal.", with "Dick" referring to Richard V. Allen.[63]
October Surprise conspiracy theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
"In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan's approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration. Longtime policy adversaries Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the deal, but Reagan, McFarlane and CIA director William Casey supported it. With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran. Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called "a hostage bazaar."

When the Lebanese newspaper "Al-Shiraa" printed an exposé on the clandestine activities in November 1986, Reagan went on television and vehemently denied that any such operation had occurred. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Despite the fact that Reagan defended the actions by virtue of their good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans believed the president when he said he had not traded arms for hostages.

While probing the question of the arms-for-hostages deal, Attorney General Edwin Meese discovered that only $12 million of the $30 million the Iranians reportedly paid had reached government coffers. Then-unknown Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council explained the discrepancy: he had been diverting funds from the arms sales to the Contras, with the full knowledge of National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter and with the unspoken blessing, he assumed, of President Reagan...."
The Iran-Contra Affair . Reagan . WGBH American Experience | PBS

When a Republican President negotiates with terrorists that's no problem, he's looked at as godlike and a saint. But when Obama did it he's a Muslim loving traitor who should be impeached.
 
I think he's one of those few Presidents that looks worse over time instead of better. I think it's pretty plain to see now that his destructive economic policies (Reaganomics) are the root cause of all of the problems we face today, including the wealth gap.

Since Andrew Jackson, America has always run deficits but until the Reagan-era the deficits was kept relatively under control. But beginning in 1983, the deficit began to explode! :shock: History has already shown that the trend that "deficits don't matter" truly began under Reagan's watch.
 
"The Iran–Contra affair (Persian: ایران-کنترا‎, Spanish: caso Irán-Contra), also referred to as Irangate,[1] Contragate[2] or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[3] They hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of several US hostages and use the money to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress...Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on December 7, 1985, indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to "moderate elements" within that country.[9] Weinberger wrote that Reagan said "he could answer to charges of illegality but couldn't answer to the charge that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free the hostages'".[9] After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages.[10] The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials.[11] On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages".[12]...charges were brought against five individuals for their support of the Contras. Those charges, however, were later dropped because the administration refused to declassify certain documents. The indicted conspirators faced various lesser charges instead. In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.[13] The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time of the affair.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair

Summary:
  • Reagan's people delayed the release of hostages held by Iran
  • In exchange for delaying the release of hostages, Iran was promised arms
  • The fact that Iran continued to hold the hostages despite Carter's efforts led to Reagan winning the presidency
  • Profits from the arms for hostages deal were used to illegally fund the Contras despite Congress's prohibition on arming the Contras
  • Cocaine was brought into the USA with profits used to illegally fund the Contras
  • The Contras used terrorist techniques that killed civilians to overthrow a legitimate government in Nicaragua

Reagan and/or his top officials should have been charged with treason.
 
Since Andrew Jackson, America has always run deficits but until the Reagan-era the deficits was kept relatively under control. But beginning in 1983, the deficit began to explode! :shock: History has already shown that the trend that "deficits don't matter" truly began under Reagan's watch.
Right. I didn't like it, but was willing to accept it because I felt we got something of value in return for it. Unfortunately, too many people... i.e.: Cheney, as one primary example... took the wrong lesson from it.
 
Right. I didn't like it, but was willing to accept it because I felt we got something of value in return for it. Unfortunately, too many people... i.e.: Cheney, as one primary example... took the wrong lesson from it.

Benjamin Franklin said Reagan was a terrible president. Now do you believe me?
 
I asked you what an appropriate response would have been in your estimation.

An appropriate response would to not be blindsided by Hezbollah. It was a stupid move all around. One of many, here's another.

In 1984, according to The LA Times, the State Department–in the name of "increased American penetration of the extremely competitive civilian aircraft market"-pushed through the sale of 45 Bell 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million, were originally designed for military purposes. The New York Times later reported that Saddam "transferred many, if not all [of these helicopters] to his military."

In 1988, Saddam’s forces allegedly attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they "believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs."

In response to the gassing, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the US Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most US technology. The measure was killed by the Reagan White House. Senior officials later told reporters they did not press for punishment of Iraq at the time because they wanted to shore up Iraq’s ability to pursue the war with Iran.

The Irony is that Reagan was also arming Iran in his deal for the hostages.
 
Has Reagan become the new Goldwater? People holding him up as their shining example without really knowing or acknowledging who he really was?
 
Reagan was not the best U.S. president of all time. Or even since World War Two.

I put him consistently at fourth best or greatest. He was almost certainly far and away the best of the possible U.S. leaders for the 1980s and he was extremely well suited for what was needed at that time.

He might or might not be suited for the challenges of today.
 
And it's very clear you people have no comprehension of what Reagan did. But I understand, most of you are just B-or less-students who have been fed a script.

I think iguanaman draws a very good distinction at how people with different political leans view things. A Marine base in Lebanon gets bombed and 241 Marines are dead under Reagan's watch and he walks away from it losing no political ground, but four people die in Libya and not only is America reminded of it on a near constant basis over the last 4 years, but a presidential hopeful is raked over the coals both by Congress with multiple Congressional Hearings on the matter and in the media.

The same could be said when comparing Reagan's negotiations with Russia over a nuclear arms reduction deal and President Obama over his on-going negotiations w/Iran to preclude them from producing and/or acquiring a nuclear weapon. People tend to see only what they want to see when they just can't bring themselves to take off their partisan blinders long enough to see things more clearly.
 
First, the collapse of the Soviet Union didn't "win" anything. That we were ever having such a conflict in the first place means we lost. That's a game you don't win. Second, his "strategy" was to be in a country with solid industry, agriculture, and resources, and two centuries under a single government, instead of being a revolutionary state, with some of its founders still alive, without that infrastructure or resources. That's geography, not strategy. The Soviet Union was doomed the moment it tried to be a world power without being able to support such an endeavor. Who was sitting in the white house made zero difference.



Oh good, propaganda. No point in continuing if you don't know or accept basic facts. We have some of the least economic mobility of any industrialized nation in the world. Almost everyone's economic class is inherited. And almost all the movement is down.



Hence why capitalism is only a little bit better than the feudal aristocracies of yesteryear, and it needs to go the way of the dinosaurs to something focused on the people as whole. We don't need aristocrats, whether they're granted titles of nobility or merely own everything.



It's amazing how much geopolitics and history conservatives have to make up in order to justify this hatred of Obama.

First, capitalism is the only system mankind has developed which allows people to exchange goods and services without force or fraud. Every socialism has adopted capitalism as an economic system because it's sustainable. Do you know why people on the Enterprise on Startreck had no pockets in their uniforms? A few centuries from now they have eliminated the need for money. You were evidently born a few centuries too early.

Finally, I don't think many people hate Obama. I don't hate him. I just think that his policies are destructive and his presidency has made the country worse.
 
"The Beirut Barracks Bombings (October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon) occurred during the Lebanese Civil War when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force (MNF) in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen. An obscure group calling itself 'Islamic Jihad' claimed responsibility for the bombings....U.S. President Ronald Reagan called the attack a "despicable act"[75] and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had privately advised the administration against stationing U.S. Marines in Lebanon,[76] said there would be no change in the U.S.'s Lebanon policy...On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawing from Lebanon largely because of waning congressional support for the mission after the attacks on the barracks...."
1983 Beirut barracks bombing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Withdrawing our troops from Lebanon may have been the best decision, but it shows that the claim that Reagan was firm and tough militarily is a myth.
 
President "My heart wants to believe I didn't lie to the American people but that facts say otherwise" Reagan? The man who sat back and didn't lift a finger while AIDS grew into an epidemic? The man who cut all funding for mental health services and created, in large part, the homeless problem all across America? The man who saw the largest reduction in manufacturing jobs and outsourcing of jobs overseas in this country's history?Uh....not even close.

You better be careful. Otherwise, some folks might start claiming "revisionist history".
 
First, the collapse of the Soviet Union didn't "win" anything. That we were ever having such a conflict in the first place means we lost. That's a game you don't win. Second, his "strategy" was to be in a country with solid industry, agriculture, and resources, and two centuries under a single government, instead of being a revolutionary state, with some of its founders still alive, without that infrastructure or resources. That's geography, not strategy. The Soviet Union was doomed the moment it tried to be a world power without being able to support such an endeavor. Who was sitting in the white house made zero difference.



Oh good, propaganda. No point in continuing if you don't know or accept basic facts. We have some of the least economic mobility of any industrialized nation in the world. Almost everyone's economic class is inherited. And almost all the movement is down.



Hence why capitalism is only a little bit better than the feudal aristocracies of yesteryear, and it needs to go the way of the dinosaurs to something focused on the people as whole. We don't need aristocrats, whether they're granted titles of nobility or merely own everything.



It's amazing how much geopolitics and history conservatives have to make up in order to justify this hatred of Obama.

I think if more Conservatives read the Federalist Papers (1-10 in this case), they'd think differently of some of their deeply held views. Because to be perfectly honest, much of what they ushered in would be viewed as tyrannical by many of the Founding Fathers they claim to support and emulate.
 
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