Sorry, Republicans: We know exactly 'what Reagan would do' about ISIS

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/05/1327450/-Sorry-Republicans-We-know-exactly-what-Reagan-would-do-about-ISIS

Unfortunately for the Gipper's hagiographers, we know exactly what Reagan would do about terrorists with American blood on their hands. President Reagan would send them a cake, a Bible and American weapons. And the Oval Office address he would deliver to the nation would start something like the one he gave on March 4, 1987:

"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."

Iran-Contra, as you'll recall, almost laid waste to the Reagan presidency. Desperate to free U.S. hostages held by Iranian proxies in Lebanon, President Reagan provided weapons Tehran badly needed in its long war with Saddam Hussein (who, of course, was backed by the United States). In a clumsy and illegal attempt to skirt U.S. law, the proceeds of those sales were then funneled to the contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And as the New York Times recalled, Reagan's fiasco started with an emissary bearing gifts from the Gipper himself:

A retired Central Intelligence Agency official has confirmed to the Senate Intelligence Committee that on the secret mission to Teheran last May, Robert C. McFarlane and his party carried a Bible with a handwritten verse from President Reagan for Iranian leaders.

According to a person who has read the committee's draft report, the retired C.I.A. official, George W. Cave, an Iran expert who was part of the mission, said the group had 10 falsified passports, believed to be Irish, and a key-shaped cake to symbolize the anticipated ''opening'' to Iran.

[freshwest]

1. Reagan and his crew:

[mdbl]

4. Don't trample on the memory of St Ronald

Makes me want to vomit when I see roads like "Ronald Reagan Blvd"

[freshwest]

5. Ah, we won't trample on him. But someone did give him a little shove:

FWIW.

[onethatcares]

2. I thought

you were going to say, "Invade Samoa".

[merrily]

3. We can ASSUME certain things about what a dead President MIGHT do, based on what

that President actually did in 1979, when the world seemed very different. But, to say that we KNOW EXACTLY what Reagan would do today if someone could both bring him back to life and fill him in on the last 40 or so years (depending on when Ronnie's Alzheimer's began) as Ronnie himself would have seen it during that time, is delusional. It may be a delusion in which we greatly enjoy engaging, but it's still a delusion.

I cannot think of a single President in my adult lifetime who did not surprise me be, for good or ill. Or, for that matter, a single human being, including myself, who has not surprised me, for good or ill. And I have some idea what an ordinary human, especially me, contends with. The Presidency is a job like no other. One thing all Presidents agree on: You cannot imagine what it is like to be President.

I wish people would get over knowing exactly what anyone would do if President at a given time. Who cares what a man who lost his faculties and died long ago would have done if President today, anyway?

[unblock]

7. it's not meant to be taken literally.

[merrily]

8. I have seen and heard way too many similar things not to challenge the concept.

[Turbineguy]

6. And Reagan brought

the caste system to the US. I think that's the reason for his continued popularity among conservatives.

[merrily]

9. Not sure what you mean?

I always thought that the settler of Jamestown and Plymouth brought the caste system to these shores, assuming it did not exist before they arrived.

[MisterP]

10. create 'em, pay 'em, egg 'em on, dump 'em--same as McCain and Obama want/did ...