I was alive and a teen in 1982 which was FDR's 100th

[dsc]

and honestly can't remember anything like this huge big deal being made. So was I a clueless teen or was there no big deal made?

On edit it should be noted that FDR would have been appalled at a big deal being made. He was adamently against an FDR memorial which is why it took decades for one to happen.

[JI7]

1. Reagan has a Fan Club similar to Justin Bieber

these people have some goal of trying to get everything in the country named in his honor and other shit.

[deutsey]

10. There's more like a North Korean-style cult of personality around Reagan

[WCGreen]

15. Seriously true...

[starroute]

13. Grover Norquist had a lot to do with that

Norquist heads the "Ronald Reagan Legacy Project" which has been the main source of this crap.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2001/03/sugarcoating-reagan

Mar. 1, 2001

Win one for the Gipper? Hell, try winning 3,067 for the Gipper. That's the goal of a group of a powerful group of Ronald Reagan fans who aim to see their hero's name displayed on at least one public landmark in every county in the United States.

A conservative pipe dream? The intrepid members of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project don't think so. Launched in 1997 as a unit of hard-line antitax lobby Americans for Tax Reform, the project's board of advisers reads like a who's who of conservatives; it includes, among others, staunch GOP activist Grover Norquist, supply-sider Jack Kemp, and Eagle Forum chief Phyllis Schlafly. To this crew, the Great Communicator is the man who almost singlehandedly saved us from the Evil Soviet Empire, made Americans proud again, and put the nation on the road to prosperity through tax cuts that helped the poor by helping the rich help themselves.

Buoyed by an early success in having Washington National Airport renamed in Reagan's honor in 1998, the project started thinking big. In short order, they convinced Florida legislators to rename a state turnpike. From there, it was a logical step to the push for a Reagan memorial just about everywhere. "We want to create a tangible legacy so that 30 or 40 years from now, someone who may never have heard of Reagan will be forced to ask himself, 'Who was this man to have so many things named after him?'" explains 29-year-old lobbyist Michael Kamburowski, who recently stepped down as the Reagan Legacy Project's executive director.

[NYC Liberal]

14. Yes. And it's usually the fans and followers who are more

irritating than the person they idolize.

[muntrv]

2. In 1982, MSM didn't give a reach around to righties like they do now.

[EFerrari]

3. Reagan is a right wingnut media fabrication. FDR was real. n/t

[CatholicEdHead]

4. Yep, FDR respect is real grassroots

Most of the Reagan idolizing is astroturf.

[Botany]

5. Welcome to the defense/insurance companies/energy companies/right wing

military industrial / disney / ESPN / fundy christian / media complex that controls
so much of the message people get to hear.

Ronald Reagan learned about fighting as a tank commandeer for Gen. Patton he then
came home and won 6 Oscars after which he helped the mentally ill of California as
Governor and then as President he stopped them commies cold and so it is written
in the bible of the right wing.

Don't ask about selling the Ayatollah weapons and putting the $ in Swiss bank accounts
to run an illegal war against the peasants in Central America who never did a damn thing
to an any U.S, Citizen because that is just for sore ass liberals who hate the flag and love them
gay people.

The truth matters little it is all about the story.

[HockeyMom]

7. Except for those of us who were adults back then

WE remember first hand. I was in my 30s when ReaGUN, as he was called, was President. Old enough to KNOW.

[hlthe2b]

6. I hate to say this, but it is because they have no MARTYR....

I won't say all I am thinking on the issue, but it is clear that the RW has been seething for decades over JFK's being remembered so fondly and commemorated with such ongoing sadness as a true American hero. The differences in JFK and nearly any RETHUG elected (or appointed) to the Presidency in the past 150 years are tremendous and the irony does not escape anyone (given the RETHUGS had done everything possible to elicit a violent act towards Kennedy, whether or not one believes them to have involvement in the plot).

Since then, they have been desperate for a way to elevate a RETHUG to that level. Since Reagan wasn't killed in his own attempted assasination incident, they have had to be more creative. And, they certainly have. Ironically, Eisenhower is deserving of some of that reverence they heap on Reagan. Reagan, though is a mere creation. And, much of that which he actually did, would have earned him RETHUG scorn today.

[monmouth]

8. They've had to live down Nixon for ages also..Hahaha...n/t

[bulloney]

9. That's kind of what I think, monmouth.

Think about it. The Republicans are the party of the Great Depression. They brought us the failed presidency of Nixon/Ford and the scandals associated with it. Eisenhower talked more like a moderate liberal. Conservatives had to hang their hat on SOMEONE. So, they made Reagan into the political equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's. Take a stiff, prop him up and make him into the life of the party. The media gerbils and the sheep in this country who are too dumb to think have been lapping up the charade ever since.

[hootinholler]

11. Well I was 22 and if there was a reason to party

I would have been all over it.

-Hoot

[Cleita]

12. Remember the funeral?

I don't think any President has gotten such a gauche and over the top send off in our history.

[Raine]

16. I was alive then too and I sure don't remember

anything for FDR. *IF* there was anything it must have been small and understated probably not much more than a mention.