Although I hated Reagan's policies, the man himself was likable, homey, witty, and personable.

[Bandit]

Republicans today have no one even close. They are Mean, Spiteful, and Petty and just can't understand why no one likes them...

[givemebackmycountry]

1. UH, I don't think so.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016459

Care to reposition?

[Bandit]

4. Yes that was one of the many positions he and the Republicans took but the man himself

was very likeable.. That is why there were so many "Reagan Democrats" He was an expert at telling stories and getting people to laugh. I never once ever heard him be anywhere near as nasty as today's republicans are on a daily basis...He actually liked people and people liked him...

[SomethingFishy]

14. He was an actor.

The likable President was just another role he played.

[PatSeg]

40. I know what you're saying

He was more likeable than this crop of candidates. Being an actor, he evidently knew how to behave before a camera and he used humor to take down his adversaries, so he didn't come across as mean-spirited. FDR did the same thing with a huge smile on his face.

Reagan was a terrible president, but is still remembered fondly by many because he did appear pleasant and likeable. Some say he was soulless, but I don't see that. I think it was more a matter of being clueless, like he didn't live in the real world. Perhaps the presidency was just another movie script for him.

[NNN0LHI]

2. My impression was that he was soulless

His eyes reminded me of the dead eyes of a shark.

Don

[Cigar11]

3. Just look at any of the Polls ...

That tells the true story

[sufrommich]

5. He was an actor who was whatever the

role required him to be.

[rurallib]

26. Actually Newt kind of reminds me of Reagan

Glib, glib, glib without an ounce of morality. Totally soulless and clueless.

[sufrommich]

47. Glib and clueless pretty much covers

both of them.

[RainDog]

6. I thought he was an ignorant ass

who, like Bush, was the face for a nasty, regressive right wing economic attack on American citizens.

I wanted to slap the shit out of him whenever I saw him on teevee. I detested the man.

[FSogol]

7. Likable, homey, witty, and personable if you were white, rich or middle class.

Reagan =

[Demit]

8. I couldn't bear to watch him. I felt he was ACTING likeable, homey, etc. All surface.

The media not only let him get away with it, they EXCUSED themselves for it, by giving him the name 'the Teflon president', so they'd never have to blame him for anything.

[librechik]

9. He was a phony and an idiot. I'm sure he had a mean streak, too--otherwise

why fire all the air traffic controllers to save money and ignore passenger safety? Why send his goons to torture and murder in Central America? Why cheat on the election?

God, he was an evil evil evil man, you just didn't know him personally. I'm sure he was a great actor with a sincere handshake and a pat on the back. Jim Jones was good at that too.

[Zorra]

10. He creeped me out really bad, like looking into the eyes of a dead rattlesnake. nt

[Drale]

11. I have heard the W

was a pretty nice guy, but that doesn't override the fact that he's the third most evil person since Mao died. The first being Chaney, the most evil person alive today, the second being Reagan, and then theres W.

[Sky Masterson]

12. Reagan was proof that personality trumps policy.

People vote for who they like. Obama was more likeable than McCain.

[RiffRandell]

20. Things slow at the other site today?

I love it!

[Sky Masterson]

35. Which site are you talking about?

[LanternWaste]

37. We see things in ways which better validate our own biases...

We see things in ways which better validate our own biases...

[bigtree]

13. smarmy asshole, more like it

never saw anything to like about the man

[closeupready]

15. Reagan always seemed like a phoney to me. And look at Patti Davis.

What kind of father raises a daughter who behaves as she did when that father is PotUS?

So I would disagree that he seemed likable or personable.

[immoderate]

16. He would give you the shirt off his back, then sign a bill to impoverish millions.

I don't remember who I'm paraphrasing here.

Though I liked his movies as a kid, he became a distasteful figure. His "gift for gab" became an annoyance, because there was nothing of substance behind it.


--imm

[hifiguy]

28. IIRC it was Tip O'Neill who said that

and he was, in all likelihood, correct. O'Neill was as shrewd a judge of people and politics as anyone I can remember.

[immoderate]

31. Much requoted, it could have been Sam Donaldson...

I tracked it down. It didn't strike me as something Tip would say (out loud. I'm not often this obsessive. Here he is quoting himself.

“I used to say I thought if you were down on your luck and you got through the Secret Service, got in the Oval Office and said, ‘Mr. President, I’m down on my luck,’ he would literally give you the shirt off his back. And then he’d sit down in his undershirt and he’d sign legislation throwing your kids off school lunch program, maybe your parents off Social Security, and of course the Welfare Queen off of welfare.”
– ABC’s Sam Donaldson, who covered the White House during the 1980s, on Good Morning America, June 11, 2004. [MP3 Audio]

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/02/01/rewriting-ronald-reagan-attacks-reagan-man#ixzz1gdVCeheN

The "undershirt" part rings a bell, so I'm pretty sure that's the way I heard it originally.


--imm

[SoCalDem]

65. In our house we call that "all frosting-no cake"... n/t

[Greybnk48]

17. The sound of his voice made me want to puke.

But that's just me.

[GoneOffShore]

18. He was your creepy uncle Ron. Not yours specifically, but

The epitome of that weird relative that every family has.

[hunter]

29. Creepy. That's the vibe I always got.

And then after Hinckley shot him and the Alzheimer's was raging, empty.

I saw him at a public appearance during his second term when he clearly didn't know where he was or what he was doing there. He was a sad lost old man trying to keep up appearances.

But the TV news and local press managed to grab a few nice sound bites that made him look like he was still in charge. After his mind got foggy he still retained some acting skills

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. He was an actor used in a role. You are mistaking mockery, smarm, gloating, and pestilence

for "likable, homey, witty, and personable".

His Contra apology speech contained not one apology, but rather a dire chain of mockery and platitude.

[HughBeaumont]

21. A wooden spokespuppet for GE, Donald Regan, Poppy and their cronies.

Had a knack for conveying "Get ready for the Big White Wealthy Fist" to the bigots, young conservatives, drooler hardhats and Phyllis Schlafly wannabes in the nicest way possible.

[indepat]

22. Reagan's public persona was likable, homey, witty, and personal:

his works (wholesale firing of traffic controllers, making the Federal income tax code highly regressive, Iran-Contra, et al, ad infinitum) define the man himself imo.

[Itchinjim]

23. Fuck Reagan.

[Ikonoklast]

24. Reagan was a soulless, vindictive, mean prick.

He is currently making me happy, however, at his permanent residence.

[RiffRandell]

25. My parents hated his policies and hated him.

Hate to use the word hate, but I grew up as a teenager in the eighties and grew up watching Bonzo going to Bitburg, my father, who is a chemist, losing his job after his plant closed and not being able to get a job with health insurance after having angioplasty, my sister having problems getting a student loan, all of Carter's environmental policies being ground to shit....oh yeah...and forget about the poor and gays. That's when I knew I was liberal.

I love my parents so much as they informed me to current events growing up. It made me who I am.

[Hatchling]

27. He was creepy, phoney.

False smile, dead eyes. The first of the puppet Presidents, but unfortunatly not the last.

(shudder)

[Lint Head]

30. Sorry, never liked him as a politician or an actor.

[baldguy]

32. So was Joseph Goebbels.

And Hitler liked dogs.

[They_Live]

33. Ghouls and Monsters

The Gipper and his whole administration.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. For a drooling idiot with fascist policies he wasn't quite as stupid as a boiled turnip.

[marmar]

36. Not to me. He came off to me as wooden, patronizing and phony.

nt

[smirkymonkey]

46. I always kind of got the "Weekend at Bernie's" vibe from him

He just looked kind of enbalmed and waxen, and it was like a ventriloquist was responsible for his speeches. Also, he was just a dickhead in sheep's clothing, to put it plainly.

Didn't he also shut down all the state mental institutions, releasing the mentally ill - some with no family and without the inability to take care of them selves - out on to the streets? How cruel can you be to pull the rug out from under some of society's most vulnerable members.

[frazzled]

38. I always thought he was creepy, kind of oily

And I completely never understood the "golden-tongued orator" moniker that was always applied to him. He always seemed either (a) corny or (b) half-intelligble. This had nothing to do with the fact that I disagreed with him; I can handle that, and distinguish it from people's personalities.

But then, we all have our own tastes, I guess.

[RebelOne]

39. Yeah, but only when he was an actor playing roles as likable, homey, witty and personable. n/t

[unionworks]

41. a likeable homey murderer

Responsible for the death squads in El Salvador

[chaska]

42. ...as most morons are.

[Worried senior]

43. He Was the Teflon President,

I was not one of the stupid democrats that voted for him, thank goodness.

[Bucky]

44. You said something nice about Reagan. Prepare to be flamed.

I never saw it myself, but I know a lot of people were taken in. I agree with your larger point, that the current crop of nutballs are unpleasant and smarmy in comparison. I think Reagan only looks good in comparison to them. His dishonest "welfare queen" anecdotes played to peoples' worst prejudices. The ugliness in the 2012 candidates is a natural evolutionary result set in motion by the aloof misanthropy of Reagan's public persona.

And because their leaders have gotten meaner, the Republican Party's rank and file have gotten meaner in the last 30 years as well. He might've been charming in person, but my charm detector was always thrown out of wack by my proximity to the harms caused by his politics. I wasn't willing to see his charm.

Of all today's leading Republicans, I consider Mike Huckabee the most dangerous, because he's the one who talks intead of pontificating. I think he's the Gipper's natural heir; he's the one who can slap on a big friendly smile while cutting off funding to anti-poverty programs.

[Blue_Tires]

45. I was a kid during his era and knew nothing about politics then

but I did like what I saw and heard on the TV

[a simple pattern]

48. Reagan was like a colony of cockroaches wearing a wrinkly mansuit.

Why would you want to lick him?

[The Genealogist]

49. He did try to come across as those things

I think he wanted to appear all grandfatherly, and he did try. Lurking beneath that micron-thin shell of kindly appearances was an evil man whose goal was to create and transfer wealth to the rich on the backs of working-class, poor, sick and elderly people.

[unionworks]

50. "He's a drug store truck drivin' man,

He's the head of the ku-klux-klan..." was that Joan Baez at Woodstock?

[unionworks]

51. It hurts me to remember these things

....because his son is a wonderful human being. Let the dead rest.

[David__77]

52. I think he was far more evil than any GOP candidate today.

He was a genuine piece of human scum.

[quinnox]

53. I agree, he was a very likable guy

He did give that "good feeling" about America when he was president. I was a kid at the time so didn't really pay attention to the real politics.

[William769]

54. Many died under Reagan's policies due to AIDS

I'm glad he's food for worms.

[darkstar3]

55. OK, I need to change fonts. I thought you wrote "horny",

and "I think I see a fluffy puff nibblet" in my keyboard.

[Kablooie]

56. He was professionally trained to present a pleasant personality to the public.

Many of you were so inflamed by his politics that you overlooked his image building ability but most people didn't.
He seemed pleasant and humerous to most people.

[Hardrada]

57. "When he laughed, stout senators rolled in the aisles.

When he cried little children died in the street."

[Norrin Radd]

58. Was he, though? Not being contrarian, but...

he seemed affable enough on TV, but I was in elementary school, and then junior high, during his Presidential terms. Recently, though, I watched the documentary "Berkeley in the Sixties," and he comes across as a grouchy, hateful asshole in the clips of him, from when he was Governor.

[ClassWarrior]

59. This says it all...

NGU.

[quaker bill]

62. Thanks

I needed that

[tawadi]

60. Likeable? Witty?

I didn't see that in the man.

"Reagan was reluctant even to acknowledge the grandeur of the trees. Of one of the oldest and loveliest groves of redwoods, he said (on 15 March 1967), "I saw them; there is nothing beautiful about them, just that they are a little higher than the others..."


Regan was the beginning of the conservative renaissance. Things have never been the same in our country. I, for one, do not look back upon his presidency with the least amount of fondness.

[quaker bill]

61. I did not find him likable

but that was the image he projected. It worked for selling borax too.

[cordelia]

63. Reagan was a dick. n/t

[SoCalDem]

64. He was an actor

He played a part

GHWB (Mr CIA) ran the show

Reagan had Alzheimers long before he left office

He knew how to deliver lines & smile for the camera