We’ve come up with a funny headline or two in our time, but our best efforts pale in comparison to the one on this week’s Time magazine. “Why Obama Loves Reagan. And what he’s learned from him” may be the funniest ten words ever written in the English language. (And let’s not even get into Time’s use of the heart symbol in a sad, dated attempt to be relevant nor the strange PhotoShopping that makes Reagan’s left arm appear to be about four feet long.)
Time says, “Obama and Reagan share a number of gifts….” But, quite honestly, we’re at a bit of a loss as to what those gifts may be other than sharing a common DNA pattern.
According to Time, “Obama was clearly impressed by the way Reagan had transformed Americans’ attitude about government.” Hint, President Obama: He didn’t do it by spending trillions of dollars nor by taking over private industry nor by coddling government employee unions.
We also can’t recall Ronald Reagan hanging out with terrorists, nor appointing communists, socialists, and Marxists to government positions. And perhaps our memories are failing, but we can’t recall him appeasing our enemies and appalling our friends.
Where Ronaldus Magnus boldly stated, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Barack Obama would have bowed to the Russian leader and borrowed money from China to provide him with additional bricks at no cost.
Nevertheless, Time just can’t get over the similarities between the two men, even quoting Douglas Brinkley as saying, “Obama is approaching the job in a Regananesque fashion.”
And then Time said, “We just flew into town. And, boy, are our arms tired. Thank you. Thank you very much. We’ll be here all week.”
Stop it, Time. You’re killin’ us. We can’t catch our breath. Our stomachs hurt from laughing.
Source: Time
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
View Comments (57)
"We also can’t recall Ronald Reagan hanging out with terrorists"
Iran/Contra doesn't count I suppose, nor freeing up tons of confiscated terrorist nation gold and trading hundreds of missiles and missile parts to Iran in exchange for 6 Iranian held hostages.
IN Reagan's own words, I guess you "can't recall" his sending US military and CIA operatives to train Honduran death squads, like the infamous Battalion 3-16
I found the side note to the bottom left of the picture to be interesting. It said something like ...
"No, the two never met, but if they did, I'm sure they would have a lot to talk about."
Deceit is one of the main problems in America. They edited the picture to make it look like they had met at one point and been "pals." When in fact, they have never met at all. Obama, like many past presidents, has deceived the people by lies and immoral doings. The article in the magazine has a timeline that compares Reagan living in Illinois, and Obama living in LA, but then both of them eventually "switch cities" with each other. The popularity of the two are compared and every bit of stats they show, Obama's ratings are all higher than Reagan. It is obvious that the article is trying to vindicate Obama for the decisions he has made and for being the person he is. A picture of Obama in the oval office throwing a football is placed next to a picture of Reagan doing the same thing. They only show what is on the surface. The problem is, we as Americans do not have any say so in politics anymore. Most political decisions are made under-the-table. I once heard the saying, "If it's a secret, it probably isn't good." Truth is, Obama has no respect for America. You can observe this when he refuses to place his hand upon his heart to the flag of the U.S.A. I think it is an insult to Reagan's legacy to compare Obama to him
"...I can tell you that no one on the radical left is a fan of Obama."
As a socialist yourself you don't get it at all.
If you read the article, it clearly distinguishes between having "love" for Reagan and agreeing in any way with his political and social stances. The point of the author is merely to show how he admires and imitates his political/oratory/rhetorical style and that he hopes to be as successful of a president as Reagan was.
Interestingly, the article also mentions that Reagan sought to be like FDR, for whom he voted in 1932.
For the record, I am not a fan of Obama, and I personally feel that he has a lot more in common with Reagan than either his fans or his critiques would have you believe. Also, to all those comparing Obama to a socialist/Marxist/etc, on what basis do you assert this? I am a socialist, and I can tell you that no one on the radical left is a fan of Obama, and the whole image of him being a socialist is a lie created by the Republicans to scare conservatives into giving them your money and your freedom, and embraced by the Democrats to convince liberals to give it to them, instead.
Well, its not exactly a lie. Obama was very close to Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, among others. Of course, they are not socialists or even leftists but that is another discussion. But Ayers, Dohrn, Carl Davidson, Mike Klonsky, Tom Hayden - these are several of the faux radicals who tried to lead the left into backing Obama and have yet to break with him politically despite voicing some criticism of some of his policies.
I saw this, this weekend and I gagged. Do these people really think most people are this stupid? How is it possible that they did this seriously? This looks like a gag and a gag in bad taste...
Reagan used to consider Tip O'Neil his buddy, outside of politics. They would.. how you say, *break bread* together, or tip back a few
And we've seen how presidents often chum up together after office.. they all realize the gravity of their unique position and probably understand each other a bit better
I've no doubt he'd have given Obama the same privilege. Minus the gagging, even
Reagan was always a gentleman.
I miss him, but then, I also miss being a lot younger, too. My biggest problem is that I'd have to go back well over 100 years to find a president I really like -- most disappoint me in some way or other.
Here is a link to the original review as it appeared on my blog:
http://stephen-diamond.com/?p=2607
Here is the URL of the cached first page from the Amazon discussion, now gone:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YgozUZ5BU1EJ:www.amazon.com/review/R2LHLFMBDJKSP5+%22stephen+diamond%22+%22stanley+kurtz%22&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com
Thank you. I contacted Stanley Kurtz and he said he had no idea it was taken down and had nothing to do with its removal. I have contacted Amazon customer service. While the discussion was heated at times, I think it was useful for all sides and think it odd to have 9 pages of discussion which hundreds of people had followed for several weeks just disappear. While I was (very) critical of the core argument of the book, other far more dismissive (and tasteless) reviews remain.
...and I'm still laughing at your comparing HP leadership to a hippy van.
Definitely a great story.. that hippy van reminds me an ancient chinese folktale or something. Great metaphor for long-lived organizations
they probably decided the central node of your review lay at the root of a graph of madness, and extirpated without mercy.. sad
I'm pretty sure Reagan, under any other name, would be called RINO today
Nope.
Yep
Pretty much. I liked some of what he did, but will not stoop to deify any dead politician in order to score political points. My definition of an ideal politician in this day and age would include a refusal to play politics as usual, especially where corporate welfare/crony capitalism is concerned.
well said.. and Obama, far from being the socialist enslaver he's accused of being here, is entirely too cozy with Wall Streeters.
Saw a very interesting discussion (if you can call it that -- it ranged from reasonable to outright flame war) on amazon.com's page for Stanley Kurtz' book. Sadly, it is no longer there, but the review that started it all is on Stephen Diamond's website. http://www.stephen-diamond.com/
Basically, his theory was that Barack is so much of an opportunist that even socialists hate him for having used them so badly and set their cause back so many years.
As much as I like making fun of Barry, I feel we haven't completely identified *who* he really is, and what he really wants. However, his close relationships with businesses/people like Goldman Sachs, GE, George Soros, and others to the point of rewarding them with positions of power and policy changes has soundly put him in the crony capitalist camp.
That is disturbing and to my mind, very dangerous. These relationships haven't even received even a percentage point of the scrutiny that Halliburton got over the past few years -- and when people in power operate without supervision, they will do things that will turn your stomach, whether that be a major business, or a federal government.
None of this will be evaluated, or taken seriously, until people on the left, especially in the media, start taking it seriously. Right now, many act like they are successful kingmakers, and haven't taken the time to see what sort of king they have created.
The review and 86 comments have now been restored by Amazon. Their explanation was that one reviewer of the reviews thought that my review had too much background information before getting to the book itself. On further review they agreed this context was not in violation of their guidelines. Since I very much doubt that they check each review I can only conclude that a political opponent flagged the review and pushed them to pull it. Thanks for the alert here.
hah you drew in the man himself.. thanks for the blog tip
I'm just a regular vortex of something-or-other. It beats what I usually get called.
I just read this posting and discovered that my detailed review of Kurtz' book has been deleted from the Amazon.com site along with all of the discussion of it and my responses by other readers. Does anyone know why that happened?
No idea -- I went looking for it today. I do not understand why they would have deleted it -- unless someone has a problem with your review.
BTW, glad to see you're here.
I've never been a fan of this type of 'reaching into the past' phony photography - it's wrong on so many levels. reagan, would 'roll-over' in his grave over this - 'bama doesn't have the right.
If R.W.Reagan was actually capable of rolling at all, He'd roll out of whatever he's in and beech slap the current occupant. That's code for elected official of note. I can't really be more specific. I miss Ron.
Reagan looks like he's saying, "I can't believe this fraud was elected! What were you thinking, America?"
As a side note, has anybody heard Michael Reagan's response to it (if any)?