Ronald Reagan Blunder? (Meet the Press)

Run time: 03:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJNrwCWLJTY   Posted on YouTube: January 20, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 21, 2008 By DU Member: jefferson_dem Views on DU: 1226

 

MR. RUSSERT: Perfect segue.
And one of the things that happened this week was Barack Obama gave an interview to the Reno Gazette-Journal. And he began to talk about ideas, Ronald Reagan, Democrats. This is what Obama said.

(Videotape, Monday):

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.
He tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: His opponents...

MS. NOONAN: Good stuff.

MR. RUSSERT: His opponents, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, immediately pounced on those comments. Here's what they said.

(Videotape, Tuesday):

MR. JOHN EDWARDS: Senator Obama, when speaking, used Ronald Reagan, President Ronald Reagan, as an example of change. Now, my view is, I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change.
(End videotape)

(Videotape, Friday):

Senator HILLARY CLINTON (Democrat, New York): My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years. That's not the way I remember the last 10 to 15 years.
(End videotape)

MS. NORRIS: Yeah.

MS. GOODWIN: You know, it's a sad point in our history when a presidential candidate cannot look back over the course of our history and show admiration for a president who did what he said. He didn't really say that he had better ideas, he said that he had transformed the country, created a conservative movement. Now, I can understand why Edwards and Hillary take that point up, but I think what's happening here is that Hillary has a sense of playing to the base, as Edwards was, and the base doesn't like Ronald Reagan. They don't like Bush. But what Obama was trying to say was, if you want a transformative presidency, if you want somebody who is going to be able, as Teddy Roosevelt was, as FDR was, as perhaps John Kennedy was, to inspire and move the country forward, you've got to have those skills that Ronald Reagan had. It's an historical fact! There was nothing wrong with saying that.

MR. RUSSERT: Interestingly enough, the Salmon Press in New Hampshire, which endorsed Hillary Clinton, cited as one of the reasons that, when they talked to her in the interview, she listed Ronald Reagan as one of her favorite presidents.

MS. NOONAN: That's right.

MR. BROKAW: May I have a cheap, self-serving moment? In my book, "Boom"...

MS. GOODWIN: Of course.

MR. RUSSERT: A best seller! "Boom," by Tom Brokaw.

MR. BROKAW: ...she says that Ronald Reagan plays the music beautifully, and she talked about how he balanced the interests of the middle class and took on the Soviets. What was also in that speech, or that remark that Obama gave, I thought didn't get enough attention probably, was how he dissed Bill Clinton.

MS. GOODWIN: Yeah.

MS. NOONAN: Yeah.

MR. BROKAW: I mean, he threw him overboard. He said he didn't have any new ideas.

MS. NOONAN: Yeah.

MR. BROKAW: And John Edwards may forget that what Ronald Reagan did was create a whole new class of voters...

MS. GOODWIN: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...that Peggy, especially, is familiar with, called Reagan Democrats.

MS. NOONAN: Yeah, baby.

MR. BROKAW: A lot of people came across the line.

MR. RUSSERT: Did...

MS. NOONAN: Absolutely.

MS. NORRIS: Which is why John Edwards' statement was so surprising.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah.

MS. NORRIS: Because I mean, if you--if you look at his stump speeches, if you look at, you know, the proposals that he's putting forth, they're clearly aimed at Reagan Democrats.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah.

MS. NORRIS: So why he would stand up on the stump and pillory Reagan, I thought was curious.

MR. BROKAW: Did anyone else...

MS. NOONAN: I think Obama looked gracious, I must say. I thought he looked above the fray and gracious. And I thought he was echoing Pat Moynihan, Democratic--former Democratic Senator Pat Moynihan's statement in 1979, "Of a sudden, the Republican Party is the party of ideas." That's what he was trying to say.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22754999/

They did clear the air here. Hillary playing to the base and in base manner.

"That's not the Ronald Reagen I remember..." she then goes on to list all the devastating policies of that horrid administration. Can't list the ones she sited here, but i remember that her list was spot on because i was there and a victim/witness to the "Reagan Years".

Sure she may have been "playing to the base" but it's the MTP ownership that's misrepresenting HER words- by omission.

We know about Noonan but what evidence do you have that Goodwin, Norris, and Brokaw are Repugs?

Oh, that's right. In your world, anyone who has a somewhat critical opinion of Bill must be Repug ...:eyes:

are either ignorant of what really happened during his terms or they embrace corporate control. I lived through his governorship and his terms as president...he could care less about the poor or the working class and fooled many middle class dems into blaming the poor or unions for our recession of the late 70's. They bought it hook line and sinker. We had a chance then to change from a war economy to a peacetime economy we blew it.

Clinton left us with a huge surplus...nothing Reagan or Bush did...they left huge deficits...Bush more than all other administrations combined.
Obama should run on the republican ticket. Check this our


FROM THE OBAMA ARCHIVE
Barack Obama and his slumlord patron
Why didn’t City Hall stop him?
Obama’s letters for Rezko
Rezko cash triple what Obama says
Obama: I didn’t know about Rezko problems
Obama ducks the questions
City should have cut off Rezko: aldermen
SEE ALSO:
“Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies,” SusanUnPC, No Quarter, January 11, 2008
Taylor Marsh’s article calling for journalists to do their jobs, and “let the vetting begin.”
From my January 11th story, “Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies,” SusanUnPC, No Quarter, January 11, 2008:


Pharmaceutical Companies: Obama’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair, Jim Demers, is a lobbyist for pharmaceutical and pro-tobacco lobbyists.
Credit Card Companies: Obama voted to protect credit card companies’ “predatory credit card interest rates.” (Sen. Hillary Clinton voted against the amendment.)
Nuclear Energy Companies: Exelon Corporation, “the nation’s leading nuclear-power-plant operator” is Barack Obama’s “fourth largest patron.” U.S. Sen. Obama “Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators” — “called ‘one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation’ by Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste; the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default.” (Harper’s)

Obama said he changed the trajectory of American politics.

The republicans were "the party of ideas," Reagan brought "a sense of optimism." It simply does not square with the reality of the time. I always think of Barack Obama as a well-educated person, but perhaps the recent past is opaque even to him. This is the first time I have seen this tape, and I find it discouraging.

people turned to Reagan after the "excesses" of the 60s and 70s. Obama also said that until Reagan government had grown and grown with no accountability. And Obama said that Reagan was for entreupreneurship.

The excesses of the 60s and 70s: rights for women and African Americans; anti-Vietnam War demonstrations

It's curious that those DUers who are most anti-Iraq seem to overlook the implications of this statement.

Reagan sold the idea that government is bad and began the privatization movement. We all know how that's turned out: Halliburton and no-bid contracts plus incompetence and wasted billions of dollars.

Entrepreneurship?!! More and more tax breaks for corporations; fewer rights for workers.

I don't think Obama has a good sense of history or else he was just pandering to those people who were Reagan supporters.

Even Russet points out how Obama dissed Bill Clinton who did his best to undo some of REagan's damage.

I am very disappointed in Obama, but I will vote for him if he wins the nomination.

Even worse , Obama reminds me a little like Michelle Malkin in some of the things he implies about the 60's. I can't quote her exact words, but she completely misses the context of the 60's and preaches about connservative moral superiorty. Young people have a habit of cherry picking and using mantras of negativity.

I can't figure him out and I'm staying away from supporting him.

I'm shaking my head sadly. I don't think young people have any idea how bad Reagan was.

I don't think Obama was careful.

He gave these vultures fodder for diving.

Just consider Norquist, Rove, Reed, Eliot, North, Poindexter, Abrahmoff. These were the idea generators resulting from Reagan. If you stop to consider all his adoring followers - you'll get the idea.

Again we're going to be left with a choice of the lesser of two evils, either it's going to be Clinton or Obama against whomever the Rethugs put up.

Hooray for the corporations - they never lose.

OF course the GOP Reagan era was a period of new ideas. There is no question about that. If that is what Obama was saying, then we could all agree with that.

What he did not say is that most of them were stupendously BAD ideas that have put this country on the path of ruin. Reagan and the two Bushes that followed his path have run up 8 trillion dollars of debt that our grandchildren may never repay. They systematically transferred trillions of dollars to their friends through initiatives like the S&L meltdown, Iran-Contra, Star Wars, and the Iraq invasion. They have set the stage for the destruction of the middle class way of life. Before Ronald Reagan arrived with his new ideas, new drugs actually had to pass safety tests and many families got by nicely with one parent working one full-time job. Before Reagan's ideas, we had a military that won World War II, and now we can't even manage to hold a peace in one small country like Iraq.

Yes, Reagan was a man of ideas. Very bad ideas.

Where was that in Obama's statement? If anything, he gave Reagan's ideas a blanket endorsement. I could maybe see a comment like that in the general election when trying to appeal to people who had voted for Reagan and are still too dense to understand where that went wrong. But saying this in the middle of the primary campaign is just as stupid as maying Jesse Jackson Jr his spokesman.

I'm done with the guy. At least Hillary is the devil we know. And I do believe she shes the Reagan ideas for what there were.

Reagan may have fooled some Democrats at the time but he didn't fool me. He hated the poor and the working class and did nothing to help them. He was a union buster and no friend to the middle class.

66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan
http://www.alternet.org/story/18874 /

such as myself could agree with?

I had not seen the actual comments. I think Obama said that WE need to be the leaders of change and not the other guys. People just can't take a little kick in the behind to get moving and that's unfortunate. I think John Edwards comments were fair, but Hillary's comments were completely unfair and intentionally missing the point. Funny how she's such a brilliant stateswoman but she can't grasp constructive criticism or how the Illinois legislature works :eyes: