Horizon

I find the "Uniter not a Divider" myth to be really amusing. Was there ever a president since the Era of Good Feelings that didn't have a substantial section of the electorate really pissed off? Honestly, the only presidents who I don't remember being particularly divisive were one-termers like Bush Sr. and Carter or presidents who I don't know much about like Truman or Eisenhower.

When Greenberg writes: "The practical streak that lay beneath Reagan's ideological vigor is seldom noted in either his admirers' panegyrics or his detractors' philippics", I can't help but be reminded of Margaret Thatcher, who was far more of a pragmatic day-to-day politician than those who loved or hated her would acknowledge.

Well, since we're on the topic, I'd like to throw in a far less ambivalent article about Reagan which, as far as I can tell, is accurate.

Well, the Reagan->OBL link is pretty shoddy. The author uses the rhetorical trick of mentioning us arming "islamic fundamentalists" under Reagan, then skips forward a decade to tie in OBL, presuming that we won't notice the span of events that occurred during that period. You might as well argue that OBL is Brezhnev's fault.

Admittedly, my own knowledge is pretty shoddy -- limited to growing up in Cocaine Charlie Wilson's congressional district, and having seen Rambo III, but even I know that there's a much longer chain of causality between Reagan and OBL.

I'd most strongly contest the notion that Reagan gave the public what they wanted. Unlike present company, most people don't translate their personal values or needs into political programs. Just look at the contradictory things respondents will say within the same poll depending how questions are asked. Non-ideological, unreflective people, especially if they work too hard to spend much time reading newspapers, want obvious things like safety, prosperity, good health, and so on. They also tend to want contradictory things -- e.g. good schools *and* lower school taxes. Reagan's people told the public that if they wanted the things anyone would want, they therefore wanted what he wanted.

I'd most strongly contest the notion that Reagan gave the public what they wanted.

OK, but you've just more or less critiqued every successful popular politician for the last 2,500 years; if you value clarity and consistency in policy above all things, liberal democracy is not the best system to pursue.

Fair up to a point, but the Reagan approach was based more than most on symbolism rather than practical policy, so the criticism applies especially to him.

Martha, can you come up with a metric of "giving the publich what they wanted" by which Reagan would fail (as you state), and say Clinton, Johnson, or Bush would succeed?

Well, the Reagan->OBL link is pretty shoddy. The author uses the rhetorical trick of mentioning us arming "islamic fundamentalists" under Reagan, then skips forward a decade to tie in OBL, presuming that we won't notice the span of events that occurred during that period. You might as well argue that OBL is Brezhnev's fault.

Well, perhaps Brezhnev had a hand in it too. So what? Pointing out that the Reagan administration armed and trained some of the same people we are fighting as terrorists today is (unless I'm very much mistaken) simply a fact. Whatever you call it, Reagan had a track record of picking very brutal friends. Maybe this is part of the pragmatism that Greenberg admires.

On the other hand, Greenberg frames the Iran-Contra scandal as if it were nothing more than a public relations blunder:

Nor was Reagan's second term free of strife. Starting in 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal revived widespread criticism of his leadership—including calls for his impeachment—and his poll ratings went into free fall.

Makes it sound like everyone got all upset over nothing.

On the other hand, Greenberg frames the Iran-Contra scandal as if it were nothing more than a public relations blunder:

In defense of Greenberg, he is specifically talking about Reagan's popularity in the paragraph in question. And strictly in those terms, Iran-Contra was a public relations blunder. I suggest we can take it as read that the author doesn't think that's all it was.

It's a fair question and, no, I can't give you a "metric" without study, but I think Reagan worsened the tendency of presidents to speak in emotional appeals rather than explaining their specific intentions to the public. He had that smiling indifference to the real consequences of actions taken for ideological reasons. These tendencies have worsened since, of course, but it was Reagan who reversed the specificity-and-accountability trend we had in that quaint period of contrition over Watergate.

So what? Pointing out that the Reagan administration armed and trained some of the same people we are fighting as terrorists today is (unless I'm very much mistaken) simply a fact.

The problem is that the author goes over the top -- rather than discussing the very real problems with our involvment in Afghanistan in the 80s, he jumps straight to the tenuous OBL comparison. It's just another variety of waving the bloody shirt, when the causality is probably as complex as that between Reagan's military buildup and the fall of the USSR.

I've never read the author, so a rhetorical dirty trick like that makes me classify him with the Bill O'Reillys and Ted Ralls of the world. Why bother?

In defense of Greenberg, he is specifically talking about Reagan's popularity in the paragraph in question. And strictly in those terms, Iran-Contra was a public relations blunder.

Yes, but that's the only appearance Iran-Contra makes in this article (apart from a reference to the "housecleaning" in its wake). Personally, I might have expected some mention of it under myth #4, which is "Reagan restored faith in government and the presidency". Again, Greenberg talks about how Reagan apparently failed to make the population trust government but frames the entire thing in such a way that he never has to mention that Reagan was, in fact, untrustworthy. Just seems like an odd omission to me.

The problem is that the author goes over the top -- rather than discussing the very real problems with our involvment in Afghanistan in the 80s, he jumps straight to the tenuous OBL comparison.

I guess I'll have to take a play from Alan A's book (which he might not appreciate), and ask you what an extended analysis of our involvement in Afghanistan would be doing in an article like this.

The strongest statement made in the article is that Reagan "helped manufacture" SH and OBL. I would agree that this is overstated, but I believe he has his facts straight (someone please tell me if I'm wrong about this), which is more than you can say for people like O'Reilly.

Are we reading the same article?

Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States.

This really seems to imply facts that, so far as I understand, aren't, like OBL's residence and leadership in Afghanistan before 1996. It also omits some pretty important events that happend after Reagan's tenure, such as our disengagement and withdrawal from Afghanistan and Pakistan during the 1990s.

Maybe this stuck out at me because I read the article with a more charitible opinion of Reagan than you, so was already predisposed against the author, but it was enough to make me file "William Rivers Pitt" somewhere between Fred Barnes and Bill O'Reilly on the propensity to omit facts in service of hyperbolic ranting spectrum.

This BBC article seems to back up Pitt.

Here's a timeline and a short biography from Frontline. They seem to suggest that OBL could not be said to have directly, personally received aid as a fighter or military leader until halfway through Reagan's second term. But the biography also seems to back up Pitt's characterization of OBL as a "spiritual leader" of the mujahedeen long before that. (Note that the site indicates that some of the biography cannot be confirmed and the source is not unimpeachable.)

Let's not forget that Reagan gave us pervasive homelessness, which is something none of us asked for.

Fascinating. I haven't been able to find any actual article in which Hazhir Teimourian discusses the CIA training, though I see dozens of references to him saying that (usually as indirect or one-line quotes). What's really interesting is that Hazhir Teimourian doesn't seem to be a left-wing nut, but rather a right-wing one.

His website includes a number of articles in which he seems to advise against the UK allowing more immigration, call for a severing of ties between the Western and Muslim worlds, and other similar stuff. He turns a A book review on the history of paper into an indictment of all of Islamic civilization. And he makes all sorts of David Horowitz style bleats about impending PC censorship in the wake of 9/11. Have you got another source on a 1980's CIA/bin Ladin connection?

This thread is actually getting me interested in the whole US involvement in Afghanistan. Has anybody read Charlie Wilson's War?

I'm not trying to defend Reagan as some sort of hero, Martha. In addition to the flaws already mentioned, Reagan's also responsible for wasting a lot of taxpayer money trying to censor pornography and popular music. The NEA/NEH cuts didn't stop the national debt from exploding under his watch. His unconditional support for Israel left us a hell of a mess. And the 1986 tax code "simplifcations" were anything but. But he did play some role in cutting inflation, and I'm inclined to think that his brinksmanship deserves some credit for the fall of the USSR, though I don't think I could substantiate that.

I just don't think you can pin 9/11 on him, as the Pitt article implies.

I guess I'll have to take a play from Alan A's book ...

Hey, who stole my playbook!

Hey, who stole my playbook!

Maybe the Reagan folks?

Have you got another source on a 1980's CIA/bin Ladin connection?

My rather brief search hasn't turned up anything else. But, while this would be a telling detail if true (to say the least), I don't think it makes or breaks the case.

The impression I'm getting is that, as with a lot of things connected to 9/11, this question in general is very murky and there is a lot of irresponsible reporting going on about it. Let us know if you find out more.