Reagan ‘Neglected Minorities’?
On January 24, USA Today published nine commentaries on Ronald Reagan’s legacy. One of the selected contributors was Sam Donaldson. Why McPaper thought the former ABC White House correspondent deserved a place among the other eight (President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, biographer Lou Cannon, and scholar Leon Aron) is a mystery.
The former ABC White House correspondent deserves some credit. In his retrospective, titled “My Respect for Reagan Only Grew,” Donaldson confesses that many underestimated the Gipper. “I must admit,” he ruefully notes: “I was one of them.” (So were many in Reagan’s own party. Example: after the former California governor finally won the GOP presidential nomination in 1980, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes, along with the entire Republican establishment, barely lifted a finger to assist in the general election effort. Reagan’s grassroots supporters in the Buckeye State did virtually all the work. I suspect that this was also the case in many other states.)
But Donaldson can’t seem to offer Reagan more than backhanded compliments. When it comes to “running up the national debt, it was Reagan, not George W. Bush or President Obama, who put us on the upward trajectory” — even though “forcing Soviet communism onto what Reagan called ‘the ash heap of history’ wasn’t such a bad way to spend the money.” Did Donaldson feel that way when it mattered? As it is, he conveniently forgets that Tip O’Neill’s Congresses repeatedly broke promises to rein in spending, and completely overlooks the fact that even after adjusting for inflation, our current president’s deficit spending, which is on track to break yet another record this fiscal year, is historically unprecedented. Worse, it has accomplished virtually nothing for the economy.
These errors, and others, are bad enough. But Donaldson’s worst offense occurs when he shows that he has fallen hard for a false meme that has achieved gospel status within the historically revisionist left:
History will continue to assess his performance, particularly his policies — minorities and women were neglected….
This is one of those “everybody knows” assertions that apparently no longer requires anything like evidence or support. It happens to be utterly baseless.
I’ll try to leave the female element of Donaldson’s dumb declaration alone after making two points. First, while they covered his presidency, cynical establishment press members like CBS’s Mike Wallace thought that the wonderful way Ron treated Nancy, the most important woman in his life, was some kind of public act. They had to quickly backtrack when Nancy published a collection of her husband’s incredible love letters in 2000. Second, the economic points I’m about to make with minorities can also easily be made about the economic progress of women during The Seven Fat Years.
There’s plentiful support for the idea that Reagan was personally concerned about the vestiges of racism that lingered in some Americans’ hearts. In 1982, a cross-burning incident five years earlier in Maryland troubled him so deeply when he read of it that he felt compelled to visit the affected family to “tell them this isn’t the way it is in America.”
The best information available about the economic progress of minorities comes from the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Census Bureau. Here’s just a sample of what their statistics tell us about the period between when Reagan finally got most of the tax cuts he wanted and when presidential successor Bush 41 stalled the economic expansion by breaking his 1988 presidential campaign’s “no new taxes” pledge in 1990 (all figures seasonally adjusted):
Congratulations! You have proven again that truth doesn’t matter to the left. It would be nice if Sam Donaldson could be made to acknowledge his lie and the lies of his avatar, Obama.
Liberals: “What’s truth got to do with it?”
“When it comes to “running up the national debt, it was Reagan, not George W. Bush or President Obama, who put us on the upward trajectory” — even though “forcing Soviet communism onto what Reagan called ‘the ash heap of history’ wasn’t such a bad way to spend the money.”
At least Reagan got something for his money, which was the end of the Soviet Union. What have we gotten for the TRILLIONS Obama has spent? That almost trillion (that’s trillion, with a “T”) dollar “stimulus” that stimulated NOTHING! Or how about those auto bailouts and the bailout for AIG? Those really worked out swell, with the Federal government now deciding which companies will succeed and which will fail. And we are still, STILL, paying for Fannie May and Freddie Mac with absolutely no end in sight for those messes that Congress created. Nope, when it comes to spending, Reagan was a miser compared to Obama, and history will record that fact for future generations. That is, of course, assuming future generations will be able to afford living in this country because of all the debt that has been run up by this administration. Shameful.
Well Said Libertyship46. My Thoughts exactly.
What kills me even more is the ‘spin’ to cover their Trillion, that’s with a ‘T’ dollar pay outs. The Obama Administration is quick to cover their tracks by saying: we would have been in deeper trouble if we didn’t spend the money (seriously how is anyone to know that? What measure do we have to know that?) We have people in this Administration “claiming” something they cannot “Prove”. The government should have let to big to fail FAIL! BUT, they only “let” SOME FAIL. Why is that?
Our ‘Government’ failed by not dealing with the economy and instead dealt with ‘their’ socialist healthcare “Agenda”. Another 2700 page Mess that to this DAY, I believe many in congress (Pelosi and Reid included) never even read the monster. And, Still have no clue as to ‘what is in it’
There “was” plenty of smaller and moderate size businesses and industries that DID have to FAIL because of the mistakes of Congress – where was their ‘bailout’? These Co’s in reality could have regenerated the economy if they were not ‘forced’ to fail… And many are now dogged with thousands of Government Rules and Regulations it’s probably scary to even ‘think’ of having to deal with these growth ‘hindering’ and ‘start up’ policies.
I hope Obama care gets ditched! Null and Void. Re-think Re-Do ! Start Over! Save Trillions! They are not getting this right either… Go GOP!
Don’t forget the fact that the way Reagan consigned the Soviet Empire to the Ash Heap of History was by building up the American military which was so sorely depleted under Jimmy Carter. Not only did this help end the Soviet Reign of Terror, but gave Bush and later Clinton a modernized military that didn’t require huge infusions of funds during their administrations. And the fact that the Soviets collapsed, as a result of Reagan policies, also gave Clinton the so-called “Peace Dividend” that allowed him to “balance the national budget” — which we are now learning really didn’t happen at all since Clinton didn’t balance anything, he simply “borrowed” from Social Security and other government programs to pay for his social engineering. The formula for deciding whether a President is “balancing the books” for, some reason, does NOT include intergovernmental shifts of money. He simply robbed from Peter to pay Paul. So it wasn’t a true balancing of accounts, under Clinton, but a show of smoke and mirrors. That hasn’t stopped the the Dems from trumpeting Clinton’s so-called balance of the budget.
Please do not feed the liberals facts, it causes them headaches.
What would you expect from Sam Donaldson, the guy that told a Al-Jazeera reporter “Thanks you for what you are doing”, in regard to the Egyptian riots. The Al-Jazeera like the MSM here, do not report news, they report their agenda. Reagan was twice the man that Donaldson will ever be or hope to be. Liberal apologists are only good at apologizing for the short falls of the left, nothing else.
Hey Sam,
Nice rug dude!!
Does it cost you extra to get it gray?
Or do you just glue a sedated very small dog to your head?
Sam Donaldson, NEVER, EVER twist the truth. Just like his buddy Al G. and how HE invented the internet.
Dear Mr. Blumer, What you fail to understand is that economic well-being has nothing to do with whether one cares about “minorities” (i.e., blacks or Latinos, but not Asians). What Mr. Donaldson is referring to is that President Reagan was against the true source of minority rights and comfort, the welfare system, and since President Reagan wished to reform that system he of course did not do enough for minorities (i.e., blacks or Latinos, but not Asians). As all good leftists know, minorities (i.e., blacks or Latinos, but not Asians) are incapable of surviving on their own and, unless the federal government takes care of them, they will perish from the Earth. Finally, as far as Reagan not doing enough for women, well that is pretty simple: Donaldson, like all other good leftists, knows that Republicans are a bunch of sexists.
Gee,I was going to write a beautifully rounded piece of literature to quell the noises on the left.But then I thought”why bother”.
Why do these out of the loop folks get any air time for their silly boring talking point nonsense any normal person knows to be biased?
And using the racist rhetoric we know they always fall back on when they have nothing else.
I wish they would get some new material.
Donaldson, such a bore.