REAGAN IS GONE

"The Gipper" is dead. You'll be overwhelmed with the tide of tributes to the uber-con, so let's review the legacy they wont tell you about.

1. After 200 marines were blown up by an Iranian suicide bomber, sold arms to Iran in contravention of US law, and then diverted the profits to fund fascist dictators in Central America who were supposed to be fighting the democratically-elected communist govts. there, but were really running brutal cartels that were producing more cocaine than at any time in history which ended up in the US. (I know this is a run-on sentence but I needed to get everything in there!)
2. Cut funding and flung open the doors of the govt. mental institutions.
3. When that resulted in an upswing in homelessness because people could no longer get their meds -said they were homeless "by choice".
4. Gave a massive Tax cut to the rich in 1981 and then increased taxes on the middle class every year of his presidency after 1981, to make up for the shortfall in revenue that he needed to fund his astronomical increase military spending.
5. Gave Saddam battle planning assistance at a time when they knew full well he was going to use chemical weapons.
6. Here's a window into his character: "In November 1983, Reagan told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit assigned to film Nazi death camps. He repeated the story to Simon Wiesenthal the following February. Reagan never visited or filmed a concentration camp; he spent World War II in Hollywood, making training films with the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps."
7. Got his political career start as a rat for the HUAC naming names for the blacklist.

Americans -particularly republicans- were demoralized after Watergate and Reagan was right there with a gleam in his eye, and an optimism that America craved. He could piss on them and tell them it was raining, and people still buy it even in the face of historical facts proving what a jerk he was.

I've heard people who swore he was the devil during the 80's call for "respect" for him in death. Bullshit. Anyone who disagreed with his policies as much as I did when he was president, but who spews this "don't speak badly of the dead" crap is a hypocrite. I hated him then and I refuse to venerate him now simply because he's 'shuffled off this mortal coil"

...but you have to admit, he sure knew how to give a speech, and he seemed sincere. Here's why:

Reagan was the Great Communicator because he was the first president to truly take full advantage of the teleprompter. I once spoke to his teleprompter operator and he said that Reagan was a "natural". He could follow the words as they scrolled across the screen and still make them sound as though they were his own. This, as I later found as a broadcaster, is more difficult than it seems because you're continually drawn to look the screen to get your words -it's like a security blanket. This is what creates the "zombie stare" that many news casters get -sometimes they don't even blink!

It wasn't enough for him to be able to read from the teleprompter though. He wanted to be able to look at the crowd more, so a new version of the teleprompter was developed especially for him. If you watch political speeches now, sometimes you'll see these weird panes of clear plastic on sticks at the left, center, and right of the podium. I used to think they were high-tech microphones, but they are actually teleprompter reflectors. They allow the speaker to look directly at the audience and still be reading the speech.

This is amazingly effective at amplifying the point for a couple of reasons. First, since the speaker does not appear to be reading the speech, the speech appears more to come from his or her own belief or "from the heart" or whatever. Secondly, looking directly at the audience is an effective way to convey sincerity -try this sometime: when you're speaking to someone and you want to leave an impression, wait until the main point you wish to make and when you get to it look the person you're talking to directly in the eye. You'll floor them, and they'll never know why. This is exactly what the screens enabled Reagan to do. It's an old actor's trick that was retooled and used to great success by an old actor. People still think he sincerely believed the crap he unloaded on the nation.

One of the reasons Bush II is so lame -and probably the reason that will lead to his political demise- is that he can barely string two words together, much less approach even an iota of the salesmanship Reagan had. It's one thing to have hateful policies, it's another thing to be able to get people to go along for the ride. Reagan could even get some Democrats to buy his line. Conversely, Bush II is alienating even some Republicans.