"The Use and Abuse of Reagan"-turns out he wasn't so perfect (from a RW'er)

Ronald Reagan's presidency was a great success. He rebuilt a chaotic U.S. military and helped end the Cold War. Reagan's radical tax cuts in 1981 spurred economic growth and redefined the relationship between U.S. citizens and their government. And he appointed conservative federal judges and bureaucrats who tried to roll back the half-century trend of expanded governmental control over our lives.

In short, Ronald Reagan has been beatified into some sort of saint, as if he were above the petty lapses and contradictions of today's candidates. The result is that conservatives are losing sight of Reagan the man while placing unrealistic requirements of perfection on his would-be successors.

But 2008 is a different world from a quarter-century ago, when Reagan began his presidency. Amnesiac candidates need to separate the myth of Reagan - the perfect conservative - from the real man when stridently chastising their rivals for their past fudging on taxes, illegal immigration or the size of government.

The current pack of five serious Republican candidates should call on the spirit and principled inspiration of Ronald Reagan for guidance about new problems in the way they evoke Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt.

But these candidates only do his memory - and their own careers - a disservice by claiming sainthood for Ronald Reagan, and thereby demanding a standard of immaculate conservative conduct that neither Reagan nor they could ever attain.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/the_use_and_abuse_of_reagan.html

Their inability to see Reality must make feeding and dressing themselves a nightmare of difficulty.

He was a total fuck-up. Which is why the RW idiots worship him.

RW'ers want to put him on Mt. Rushmore--my idea puts him on an even higher mountain, a mountain that he himself built (with a lot of help from Chimpster.)