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• Only a few (Score:2)

  by jdavidb (1361)

  Only a few voices dare recall how harmful his policies were.

  And you must feel so special being one of those few enlightened people. How can you be so daring? Aren't you afraid something's going to happen to you? After all, apparently many people far more popular and powerful than you don't even dare to recall how harmful Reagan's policies were. Must be a really dangerous thing to say.

  --
  J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
  • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

    by rafael (2125)

    Well, dare might not be the right word (non-native speaker here). When someone dies, esp. after a long and painful agony, people tend to remember only the positive things about him; that's very natural. In the case of Reagan, that means that people focus on the non-political side of his biography, since he was such a catastrophic president (although Bush raised the standards recently). This amusing cartoon [typepad.com] (found via Dave Cross) summarizes the current situation.
    • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

      by pudge (1) on 2004.06.15 12:46 (#31556) Homepage Journal

      The problem is, Reagan's policies weren't particularly harmful. Sure, they weren't perfect, but on balance our country did far better under his policies than any President since FDR. His policies led us to a dramatic economic turnaround and victory in the Cold War. The number of people in poverty didn't decrease significantly, but didn't increase either.
      
      Also, you say "was heavily criticized during his period of activity," but he was far more praised than criticized. He won 48 of the 50 states [presidentelect.org] for reelection (and Bush won big four years later [presidentelect.org] mostly because of Reagan, too). He is remembered fondly not because we are forgetting the bad, but because we thought it was mostly good at the time, and still do.
      
      I'm sorry, implying Reagan was not extremely popular just doesn't fly. He was not as popular as FDR, to be sure, but in the 20th century, he was second only to FDR in popularity. I'd have to put him ahead of the only other two very popular Presidents I can recall, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. LBJ won his election big, but much of that was because of Kennedy (similar to Bush in '88), and he was very UNpopular by the time he left (which is why he didn't even bother running).

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      • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

        by jdavidb (1361)

        49 states. One of those was DC.

        --
        J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
        • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

          by pudge (1)

          Oh right, 49 of the 51 slates of electoral votes. :-)
      • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

        by rafael (2125)

        You know what? I don't really care about Reagan. I'm not a citizen of the USA and this poor chap is now dead. I wrote a journal entry about Steve Lacy and RSS feeds and it turns out to provoke an avalanche of posts about Reagan. Next time I'll choose a more neutral subject, like (for example) XSLT applied to gay marriage.
        • Re:Only a few (Score:2)

          by pudge (1)

          Fair enough. I didn't want to turn it into a big thing, just responding to part of what you wrote. :-)