I think some of the conservatives that are frustrated with the glowing press Obama is getting should think for a second before they start calling him Obamamessiah. Do you guys seriously think your hero Ronald Reagan was a good and competent president? Really? Maybe you should read a book.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
They read the only book they need, Good Book. Besides, in it, they know it says somewhere that the Messiah had blue eyes.
But unfortunately they chose this one.
I hear, however, it’s a little light on actual facts.
Though I’m sure it makes a fine coaster for your beer can.
you mean wine.
we liberals drink lots of wine, especially the gay wines like chardonnay and chablis.
that’s how you can tell we’re liberals.
/snark
Actually, I got a chain email from a particularly doofy conservative I’m friends with about how conservatives drink beer and liberals are wine drinkign sissies.
I told him I’d made 30 gallons of beer over the past month. How much had he made. Shut him up pretty quickly.
My dad is about as right wing as you can get and he only drinks “lite beer”. Busch Lite, in particular, which I don’t even consider a beer.
His taste buds are as restricted and close-minded as his politics.
My fridge, however, is always stocked with a good variety of beers. Belgian, English ales, Bocks, all assortment of colors. He says he’d rather drink used motor oil than drink my beer. Suits me just fine. I wouldn’t want to upset a poor Republican’s stomach too much with my sissy beer.
yeah, my pal’s a beer sissy too. In fact, Mr. Rock-ribbed Conservative told me he doesn’t drink beer except at bluegrass festivals, which explains the Coors Lite and Keystone Light he pollutes himself with.
I’ve never understood how you could make a beer as watery as Keystone lighter.
And now Budweiser is owned by them damm furruh-ners from Europe. What’s a red-blooded American beer drinker going to do now?
What the hell do the damn Belgians know about brewing beer anyway? Europeans only been doing it since about 5000 B.C.
… and those losers don’t even use corn or rice to lighten up the flavor! Just that “barley malt” stuff.
f*ckin’ Belgians don’t know anything about real Amurcan beer.
That’s it!!! No more Budweiser with my freedom fries.
Have you tried local micro-brews? Pennsylvania has a lot; I don’t know about Ohio. My favorite is Victory Brewery’s Prima Pils. It’s fresher than European imports, and not pasteurized. In my opinion, it’s better than most German beers, and I’ve drank a lot, in Germany.
Beer brewing is really pretty popular in this area. I used to work with a guy who was really into homebrewing and he got to where he could make some pretty damn good tasting stuff.
There are two microbreweries here in town. There is also some available across the river in northern Kentucky which are pretty popular. They all put out some good quality product. The Cincinnati brewing tradition is hard to kill. There are still some real beer lovers around.
I was getting ready to post a comment about liberals and beer, but you beat me to it. What types are your favorites?? Is your supplier of hops running out?? Another beer loving progressive wants to know. ;@)
no need to read a book. How about WSJ?
Unravelling Reagan: Amid Turmoil, U.S. Turns Away
From Decades of Deregulation
Oh, Huffpost has this gem: Watch this Video – McCain gets testy, blows off WSJ reporter
I will say one thing about Reagan… he gave good speeches. I was watching a few old political speeches on the web the other day. One of them was Reagan’s “farewell” speech, which I had seen snippets of but never watched in its entirety. I was surprised at how good it was, both in delivery and in mastery of rhetoric. Obviously, I’m no fan of Reagan’s policies… but you can see why the right worships him. The contrast with both Bushes is astounding.
This made it all the more frustrating for those of us who saw through the Reagan aura. I understand the rabid right’s consternation now, even though I think they are dead wrong on Obama.
Obama speaks code words for neoconservative/neoliberal economics. His aspirational/inspirational rhetoric is about as shallow as a salt flat in Death Valley, and about as full of water.
He’s just a different shade of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.
Sorry dreamers, Obama’s not going to save us from the grips of neoliberal economics and shock therapy that’s tearing apart our big utopia here.
Reagan gave good speeches: Reagan was a trained and experienced actor, literally.
Well, a B-list actor at best, but a top of the line spokesmodel. He could sell patent medicine or economic bullshit with equally great facility. Which is what Americans admire most.
“I will say one thing about Reagan… he gave good speeches.“
Yeah. So does Obama. Yet some people are convinced I am wrong to be unimpressed by their beloved until I see what he actually DOES.
Actions speak louder than words.
Interesting, I always found them to be more than just a bit condescending.
What’s odd about the so-called “conservatives” is that they spend almost no time and energy supporting the policies of Republican candidates. They are focused almost exclusively on being AGAINST liberals. Their self-definition is anti-Democrat, rather than pro-Republican. It’s a gloomy rut to be stuck in.
The Republicans have always been much better playing an opposition party than being in charge and having to deliver things like actual results. They talk a good game, but their philosophy is just inherently non-functional in the real world. They might hit an occasional one out of the park but for the most part they are a dysfunctional party who can only win by tearing down the opposition. They can never consistently win on strictly a battle of ideas. Look at the last two presidential election cycles. That is the only way they can win.
when reality busts the myth, the next phase is “Fear”
oh shit, do you think they’ll remember me praising him?
LMAO…..yeppers, I have a mind like an elephant ; )
peace….life without Bush Types…it’s possible
The wingnuts love to play the race card against Obama, but can’t stand it when they see the excitement over getting a black president. Cuts both ways, doesn’t it, poor dumb wingnuts. Just be grateful that he talks about “reaching out” to sadass throwbacks like yourselves.
This is what happens when you title a blog “Deep Thought.” I tend to think deeply.
I was going to post a comment about Ronald Reagan’s work in the early 1950s as a spokesman for a CIA program that imported ex-Nazis into the U.S., the respons in part because of the happy face with the Hitler mustache reminded me of Ronnie Reagan’s true nature. I couldn’t remember the name of the program but remembered it was in Christopher Simpson’s book BLOWBACK, which came out about 20 years ago.
Curiously, I was googling and came across a recent NYT book review, so maybe it’s being republished. The first half of the review was generally favorable; in the second half of the review the author, SERGE SCHEMANN the NYT Bonn Bureau Chief, kind of poohpoohs the idea that bringing in Nazis didn’t really poison American politics:
“Besides, were the emigres really all that influential? Mr. Simpson claims that something called the Captive Nations movement, in which the C.I.A. had a hand, hindered Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in their search for detente with the Soviet Union. Even if it did, is that really a ”blowback” from the recruitment of Nazis?”
The importation of Nazis and fascists was part of the Captive Nations movement. Many a war criminal ended up heading a reactionary liberation movement for Eastern European countries, and often were sent back and reinserted to their old homelands and became the first elected when Communism fell. They were the ones to dismantle government social programs in those countries to enable shock capitalism there. In the U.S. they were part of the Republican Heritage groups and surfaced briefly to embarrass GHW Bush in 1988. Paul Weyrich worked with these people and prepared them to retake the Eastern Bloc, the bifurcated slabs of the former Soviet Union and even the rump state of Russia.
Remember from a few months ago that guy von Spakovsky, whose parents escaped Nazism in 1950 (about five years too late) and settled in Huntsville, Alabama with the biggest collection of Nazi scientists in the world. And what has von Spakovsky been doing lately but working as the point man for Republicans trying to prevent people of the wrong color from voting.
By the way, the fascists really hindered President Kennedy. They hindered him to death.
As Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”
And for decades, the only refugees admitted to this country were anti-Communists. Think about it.