Reagan Apologists are Right to be Ashamed

Conservatives religiously defend Reagan’s exploitation of racial tensions to get elected, and when confronted with the evidence, conservatives are quick to say, Well, it’s complex.

Bob Herbert, of the NY Times, reminds us that, indeed, things were complex and that there’s a certain context in which Reagan’s use of racial prejudices must be observed:

Let’s set the record straight on Ronald Reagan’s campaign kickoff in 1980.

Early one morning in the late spring of 1964, Dr. Carolyn Goodman, her husband, Robert, and their 17-year-old son, David, said goodbye to David’s brother, Andrew, who was 20.

[...]

It was a dangerous mission, and Andrew’s parents were reluctant to let him go. But the family had always believed strongly in equal rights and the benefits of social activism. “I didn’t have the right,” Dr. Goodman would tell me many years later, “to tell him not to go.”

After a brief stopover in Ohio, Andrew traveled to the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi, a vicious white-supremacist stronghold. Just days earlier, members of the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed a black church in the county and had beaten terrified worshipers.

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable.

[...]

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

[...]

To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.

I agree with Mr. Herbert, Reagan apologists have reason to be ashamed of his actions, but have no right to change the meaning of history.

Republicans Want an Imperialist

We’ve seen that the Liberal brain is more adaptive, open to new experiences and data, and, therefore, less authoritarian. If true Liberals, what does it say of conservatives and republicans, and their world view? John McLaughlin, of The McLaughlin Group, has some insight on the question, via CrooksandLiars.com:

McLaughlin: Look Americans — particularly Republicans like you [referring to Tony Blankley] — they love authoritarianism.

Blankley: I don’t love authoritarianism. Even though I love you, John.

McLaughlin: Keep quiet now. They don’t want a President. They want an imperialist.

I think John McLaughlin has it right.

Nothing Funny About Conservatives

It’s so great to have access to Paul Krugman’s columns once more. To read what I’m talking about, here’s a taste of what had been missing from the blogsphere since the NY Times put its columnist behind a paid firewall (which, luckily, is no more):

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, who had been shocked by the hunger he saw in West Virginia, made the fight against hunger a theme of his presidential campaign. After his election he created the modern food stamp program, which today helps millions of Americans get enough to eat.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Today’s leading conservatives are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

[...]

Before the last election, the actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s and has become an advocate for stem cell research that might lead to a cure, made an ad in support of Claire McCaskill, the Democratic candidate for Senator in Missouri. It was an effective ad, in part because Mr. Fox’s affliction was obvious.

And Rush Limbaugh — displaying the same style he exhibited in his recent claim that members of the military who oppose the Iraq war are “phony soldiers” and his later comparison of a wounded vet who criticized him for that remark to a suicide bomber — immediately accused Mr. Fox of faking it. “In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it’s purely an act.” Heh-heh-heh.

[...]

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart.

[...]

So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny.

Rush Limbaugh Calls Anti-War Veterans “Phony Soldiers”

Oh, this is just rich… Rush “disqualified from the Vietnam draft due to a pilonidal cyst” Limbaugh calls American troops that oppose the Iraq war “phony soldiers”:

LIMBAUGH: “Save the — keep the troops safe” or whatever. I — it’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER: No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

Here you have Rush, who got out of serving in Vietnam ’cause he had a boil on his ass, calling American war veterans “phony soldiers” because they oppose a war that Bush-republicans support and, of course, there’s no one in the traditional media calling Bush-republicans out on their hypocrisy.

Remember, this week Bush-republicans forced a vote in Congress condemning the MoveOn ad that, rightly, pointed out how General Petraeus acted as a political operative for the Bush administration when the General appeared before Congress.

Well, I think John Amato has it right:

I’m calling on the Senate to pass an amendment or uphold their latest one and condemn Rush Limbaugh’s cowardly acts on our troops! Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne in Iraq wrote a NY Times op-ed — criticizing the war in Iraq, and had the bravery to suggest that it was time to develop an exit strategy. Two of them just died. Are they phonies, Rush? Where’s the “sense of the Senate” on this outrage?

UPDATE: This is more like it… from Congressman John Hall:

Dems ARE condemning Rush Limbaugh for his repeated attacks against our service members. Enough is enough.

I know that there is a back and forth about whether another condemnation is worth the time. I happen to believe it is in this case. Therefore, I’m introducing a resolution that shows emphatically that Congress will not condone ad hominem political attacks on U.S. troops. On Monday, I’m introducing legislation to express the Sense of Congress that this body rejects and condemns Limbaugh’s heinous remarks, and will continue to engage in a debate on ending our involvement in Iraq that eschews character-based attacks on our Armed Forces. Hopefully, this will end the back and forth so we can focus our efforts on ending the war.

Signs of the Democratic Party Aristocrats

Chris Bowers, of MyDD.com, has put together a nice list describing the characteristics of the Democratic Party establishment aristocrats that sold us out to conservative republicans over the past 20+ years. The characteristics of the Democratic Party establishment aristocrats are:

• Views primaries against incumbents as “purges,” especially when they come from the left. All Democratic Party officeholders should receive their party’s nomination by right of possession.
• Thinks the war in Iraq was managed badly, but ultimately wasn’t a bad idea.
• After reading one too many Mark Penn polls, makes up imaginary friends like the Baileys as the gold standard for the average American voter.
• Constantly argues that we should end the circular firing squad and focus our efforts at Republicans, while simultaneously triangulating against left-wing strawmen at the same time.
• Believes in concepts like the “radical middle,” or that American is fundamentally a moderate country, even though most people who consider themselves moderates are actually just low information voters and non-ideological.
• Considers Fox News to be a conservative, but still legitimate, news outlet. Will gladly go on Fox News to reach out to new voters.
• Believes cutting the defense budget is political suicide, and should not even be discussed lest Democrats look weak.
• Finds GLBT issues to unbelievably radioactive, and tries to steer the most cautious course possible in this area.
• In terms of cults of personality, hates Howard Dean and joined the efforts to derail his presidential campaign / try and push him out of the DNC; loves Joe Lieberman and decried the efforts to try and knock him off; is interested in Michael Bloomberg’s potential presidential run and subscribes to his newsletter.
• Thinks that the blogosphere, You Tube, MoveOn and other netroots developments are fundamentally negative for the Democratic Party. Such institutions are filled with a new generation of dirty fucking hippies who will lead the Democratic Party over the cliff of unelectablility due to our ignorance, foul mouths and unwavering adherence to a far-left ideology.
• Thinks that dissenting from the great, all-powerful left makes you a rebellious, cool “outsider.”
• Considers the conservative rise in elected power from 1978-2006 to be a natural result of the country turning to the right and which can be countered by turning to the right ourselves. Does not believe that the massive conservative political machinery constructed over the past few decades played a major role, or that progressive political machinery must be constructed to counter it.
• Thinks that all options must remain on the table against Iran, including the use of nuclear weapons, because threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike against a relatively powerless country you are not at war with makes you look tough on national security issues rather than absolutely insane.
• Argued for censuring Bill Clinton as a political necessity despite his 60%+ approval rating, and against censuring George Bush, Jr. as a political necessity, despite his 35% approval rating.
• Considers those who oppose completely unregulated trade to simply be rubes, even if they are also part of the “radical middle” that must be courted at all costs.
• Speaking to the Democratic rank and file, rather than to swing voters, is fundamentally a waste of resources.
• Running a fifty state strategy and spending money on field or internet instead of only and ever focusing on TV ads in swing districts is a waste of resources.
• Even though he lost an open seat in an overwhelmingly Democratic year, believes that Harold Ford Jr. is the model for the future of the Democratic Party.
• Won’t read this post, or catch The Simpson’s reference in the Michael Bloomberg joke above.