Althouse: Ronald Reagan!

January 12, 2008

Ronald Reagan!

22 comments:

Maxine Weiss said...: This is not what you should be doing on your birthday.

Birthdays in the Althouse family seem rather lackluster.

Your special birthday dinner, and birthday music.

The symbols of festivity and celebration seem to be missing.; 1/12/08, 7:40 PM
blake said...: It's not surprising that Reagan's ghost should haunt these proceedings. Doesn't the GOP have to decide whether they're going to continue down the road RWR laid out?

The Dems are certainly no longer the party of JFK and they still bring his ghost to their debates. (Though not as much. Any Dems running as JFK Dems?); 1/12/08, 7:43 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Eh... I'm grading exams. That video was a little break. I'm not celebrating my birthday today. Will celebrate later... when I get my exams in.; 1/12/08, 7:48 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: If you're lucky enough to have a birthday fall on a Saturday night, I'd think you have big PLANS !!!

Sardi's, Tavern On The Green, Patsy's, Zabars etc...

A Saturday night birthday, in the City---the possibilities are endless.

Didn't Christopher's Birthday fall on a Saturday last year?

The Althouses and their Saturday Birthdays.

Let's home they make the most of 'em.; 1/12/08, 7:49 PM
rhhardin said...: Harvard Philosophy Professor Stanley Cavell is worried about Reagan in 1985 :

The second set of documents [that came to my attention] consisted of material concerning a form of Christian fundamentalism that believes nuclear war will be the fulfillment of the biblical image of Armageddon as given in the book of Revelation, that accordingly a final war is scheduled between us and our enemies in which the stakes are the victory of cosmic good over cosmic evil...Since President Reagan is reported on a number of occasions to have endorsed this fundamentalist view - sometimes called ``end-time theology,'' the view that in our time we will see the end of time - it is understandably a question for many of us whether his administration has the will and the taste to muster and be constant to whatever practical wisdom is within human command on the subject of nuclear war. The material on endtime theology was sent to me at my request by a friend and student of religious education who has enlisted in the labors of nuclear education. I should say at the outset that I agree with the sense of many of those similarly enlisted, to whom I feel endebted, that the idea of a final nuclear war as God's own instrument and plan for human kind is an expression of despair. This will hardly imply that we have nothing to fear ; on the contrary it implies that despair, always a mortal temptation, is now itself a mortal danger, since it is precisely a climate of despair that will east the fulfillment of our worst fears.

``Hope Against Hope'' Appendix A of _Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome : The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism_ p.129-130; 1/12/08, 8:13 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Re: tax cuts...

They should have compared themselves to Kennedy to make themselves more appealing to Democrats and swing voters....

"Every dollar that is released from taxation, that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary and these new jobs and new salaries can create other new jobs and other salaries."

--JFK video from 1962; 1/12/08, 8:18 PM
Anonymous said...: LOL, that video was hilarious. I loved the part where they all said it at the same time.

Reagan certainly did make an impression on people, didn't he? We're still transfixed, 20 years later. I remember in high school watching him deliver an incredibly moving speech -- he was a master orator -- at one of our Space Centers on the day of a shuttle landing. Just as he reached the climax of his speech, the roar of the space shuttle could be heard in the distance. A moment after he finished speaking, the shuttle landed on the tarmac behind him. It just blew me away. I wonder if I could find video of that wonderfully choreographed moment on YouTube...

I was actually a Republican, back then.; 1/12/08, 8:34 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Forget Reagan.

Ezra Levant!

Videos of him defending himself in a Canadian Kafkaesque Kangaroo Court.; 1/12/08, 8:38 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Blake said:
Any Dems running as JFK Dems?)

They can't. Compared to the current crop of "progressive" Democrats, JFK was a far right wing extremist.; 1/12/08, 9:35 PM
Anonymous said...: I was actually a Republican, back then.

And so you will be again, grasshopper.; 1/12/08, 9:43 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Verso,

I used to be a lot of things. I always came back to my one true self. If you come back, we will welcome you with open arms and not treat you like a traitor or send you to a reeducation camp.

We will also protect you from the Progressive Assassin squads. They wear black, drive black cars, and fly black helicopters. They go after those who leave the cause and terminate them with extreme prejudice.

They are part of the Soros- Clinton
consortium.; 1/12/08, 10:32 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: There is no good. There is no evil. There is only power.

Lord Voldemort.; 1/12/08, 10:42 PM
Simon said...: This is meaningless. You could put together an identical project based on democratic candidates and the word "change."; 1/13/08, 12:04 AM
Anonymous said...: Do you think Ronald Reagan would buy a iPod nano? And if so what would he listen to?; 1/13/08, 1:39 AM
reader_iam said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/13/08, 3:11 AM
John Stodder said...: Change is a transitive verb.

"Change" without an object is completely ambiguous to the point of being meaningless.

In the next debates, I hope candidates who claim they are for "change" are asked "change what?"

I'm sure they'll have some answers, but it would be nice if in their slogans they would at least complete the verb by saying "the government." Or whatever.; 1/13/08, 4:51 AM
hdhouse said...: i wasn't online to see this. it is now a perfect sunday morning. deer just walked through my backyard...there is frost on the ground and i'm off to the bagel store for fresh made.

i watched the video.

now i want to find a gun and shoot myself.; 1/13/08, 6:24 AM
MDIJim said...: George, the JFK video is a showstopper. The GOP should run with that.; 1/13/08, 6:49 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: hdhouse said...
…now i want to find a gun and shoot myself.

Shoot the deer instead. Meat on the table.; 1/13/08, 7:57 AM
Modern Otter said...: Do you think Ronald Reagan would buy a iPod nano? And if so what would he listen to?

I don't think Lee Greenwood's recorded enough songs to fill a nano, has he?; 1/13/08, 10:05 AM
Cedarford said...: Middle Class Guy said...
hdhouse said...
…now i want to find a gun and shoot myself.

Shoot the deer instead. Meat on the table.

No, henhouse had it right the 1st time.; 1/13/08, 11:11 AM
Astronaut Mike Dexter said...: I'm just glad Rudy Giuliani has found something other than "9/11" to name-check ad nauseam.

At this rate, he might actually come up with a substantive idea to talk about in a few years.; 1/14/08, 9:54 AM