Posted on 06/13/2004 9:04:38 PM PDT by Pokey78
What was the meaning of the past remarkable nine days? You cannot stop the American people from feeling what they feel and showing it. From the crowds at Simi Valley to the hordes at the Capitol to the men and women who stopped and got out of their cars on Highway 101 to salute as Reagan came home--that was America talking to America about who America is.
It was a magnificent teaching moment for the whole country but most of all for the young, who barely remembered Ronald Reagan or didn't remember him at all. This week they heard who he was. The old ones spoke, on all the networks and in all the newspapers, and by the end of the week it was clear that Ronald Reagan had suddenly entered the Lincoln pantheon. By Friday it was no longer a question, as it had been for years, whether he was one of our top 10 presidents. It was a question only whether he was in the very top five or six--up there with Lincoln and Washington. An agreement had been reached: the 20th century came down to FDR and RWR.
What is important now is that we continue to speak of the meaning of his leadership. Not bang away about what a great guy he was--there are a lot of great guys--but what huge things he did, not because he had an "ideology" but because he had a philosophy, a specific one that had specific meaning. He was the great 20th-century conservative of America. He applied his philosophy to the realities of the world he lived in. In doing so he changed those realities, and for the better. This is what we must pass on.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Thanks for the ping. Peggy outdoes herself again.
I agree that Robinson could be The Haircut.
I think Darman could be the Hack.
I thought the last section of this essay was gratuitous, unnecessary and totally beneath Peggy Noonan.
I would rx that you give Peggy the benefit of the doubt. Look at the Thacher quote and all you know about Peggy and how she feels it is so important to protect and defend our country from enemies in all their forms.
I will grant to her that this is not so much personal as an attempt to warn others who could be in a position to harm Reagan's true legacy and our country's future.
Note how she described the "bad guys" in the administration that Bently had ot war with over getting Reagan's actual conservative philosophy into his speeches.
I do not think this is merely catiness by Peggy. She is a lot bigger than that, IMHO.
Is Dana Rohrabacher like the Hack in other respects?
Robinson would be CANDIDAte for the haircut. Robinson wrote two books which could be relevant and in which credit to Bently may have been expected. Peggy said the Hack did not write a book.
We can always share.
Was this attributed? I didn't see it.
I thought of that last night, too, afer I signed off. I think that may be who it is...
You have pointed to what I was thinking of. I really think the country has come to love the elder Bush more than he ever was in office. (except for brief spots of extraordinary high approval, where the country glimpsed he was a good man). His book of letters, his grandfatherly and sweet nature--witness his eulogy last Friday. Not the deepest or most historically significant, but very much like a euology we'd want from a close friend or relative for one of our loved ones. And people love that. Also, I think those who know George and Laura Bush--and are people of good will, not liberal or democrat enemies--love them, too. The Reagans had the same type (still do) of enemies.
And it sure looks to me like Hollywood loves the Clintons.
I agree with Peggy's assessment here of Hollywood and the Clintons. I wouldn't call it "love", but drawn to what they represent and the positions they achieved.
Was it Michael Gerson? Michael Gerson is President Bush's main speechwriter and he is the best.
He was a speechwriter for Nixon. But for Reagan, he was director of communincations. That put him in charge of all the speechwriters. So he coulnd't have been the lowly speechwriter referred to in this article as the "Hack."
Dana served as Special Assistant to President Reagan. For seven years he was one of the President's senior speechwriters. During his tenure at the White House, Rohrabacher played a pivotal role in the formulation of the Reagan Doctrine and in championing the cause of a strong national defense. He also helped formulate President Reagan's Economic Bill of Rights, a package of economic reforms that the President introduced in a historic speech before the Jefferson Memorial.
Note he says he was a senior speechwriter.
For once, I wish you'd describe what we should have done after Afghanistan? The typical response from anti-Iraq war people is 'focus on Afghanistan' and yet even if we did get Bin Laden would that be it for you? Everything would just be solved after Afghanistan, right? Bush was supposed to just ignore Iraq and it's noncompliance with UN resolutions and his threats towards our country? Terrorism and threats such as 9/11 would supposedly stop after Afghanistan? It's a much broader problem and Bush is going about it the right way because things have got to change in the Middle East and Saddam Hussein being taken out is directly involved in the war on terrorism.
Does anybody know if Noonan has ever mentioned Elliott in any of the books she's written? Or is she just trying to take down Robinson because he's getting credit for the "tear down this wall line", so he's threatening to crowd her out of the limelight? Because Noonan is a big self-promoter, I think you have to consider self-promotion -- and not some noble concern for Ben Elliott -- as the possible real motive behind the digs in this article.
whaddya mean, "after Afghanistan" ? Afghanistan ain't over - - and we haven't caught Osama yet. REMEMBER OSAMA? Unlike Saddam, he actually had a central role in 9-11. REMEMBER 9-11? I think we ought to focus our fire on the guys who did 9-11. That's AL QUEDA. Saddam wasn't a part of Al Quade - unless the administration has been lying to us when it says that they haven't found a link.
It most definitely is intellectually honest. Bush himself said there wasn't a link between Saddam and 9-11. It's Al Quade we should be after. Remember Osama? OSAMA? He's the mastermind behind 9-11, and we haven't found him or caught him, unless you know something I don't.
Although you are probably not a democrat read my tagline.
Also, like Churchill, we shall fight the terrorists in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender....
BTW, the terrorists were in Iraq way before and after 3/19/03. Saddam also had a nasty habit of providing millions of dollars worth of funding to those nasty beasts.
After 9-11, Rohrabacher’s views and public actions took on a more sinister appearance, as radical Muslim groups began to count on him increasingly as support for their positions dwindled in Congress.
In a heated May 2, 2002 exchange with conservative talk show host Alan Keyes, for instance, Rohrabacher insisted that “[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and [Palestinian Authority President Yasser] Arafat are cut out of the same cloth” and claimed that “there’s been acts of terrorism committed against the Palestinian people as well,” statements that made Keyes audibly gasp.
When challenged, Rohrabacher claimed that targeting civilians “was standard operating procedure of the Israeli army for years of occupation,” when in fact the Israelis have consistently sought to spare civilians even at the price of the lives of their own soldiers, as was the case during the April 2002 battle of Jenin. Challenged a second time by Keyes, who called his comments “outrageously objectionable,” Rohrabacher reiterated his belief that “both sides have committed terrorism.”
Rohrabacher was one of four Republicans and seventeen Democrats who voted no to a May 2, 2002 Congressional resolution (HR 392) that expressed support for Israel as it faced a wave of terrorist attacks that killed more than 600 civilians. The resolution, which radical American Muslim groups lobbied against unsuccessfully, also stated that “the United States and Israel are now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism.”
Voting with Rohrabacher against the resolution were Democrats such as Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Jr. (Ill), Barbara Lee (CA), Peter Defazio (Or), and Michigan Representatives John Conyers, David Bonior, and John Dingell, all of whom have taken campaign cash from donors who have publicly supported Hamas and other terrorist organizations. “Dana has allied himself with the anti-American left-wing thugs that we always opposed,” said Steinberg.
Some of Rohbacher’s Muslim donors are currently in federal prison awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.
Steinberg is just one of a closely-knit group of Rohrbacher friends and supporters who have been trying over the past eighteen months to get the California libertarian to open himself up to other viewpoints. For years, these supporters - many of whom asked not to be cited by name for this article - have urged Rohrabacher to travel to Israel. When he complained that no one would sponsor the trip, they offered to pay his travel expenses, but again he refused. you can get this by searching on FR for Dana Rohrbacher--it was part of a frontpage article
sorry
here is the FR title
and link
Title:
Attacks are misleading, abusive, mean-spirited (Dana Rohrabacher)
Link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071422/posts
Yes, we should catch Osama. We still have troops in Afghanistan. And even if we find Osama-it isn't going to be solved. Do you really believe it ends with Afghanistan and finding Bin Laden? And YES Iraq is involved. Terrorism, the Middle East is involved in 9/11. This is more than Al Qaeda and you and people like you had better get your heads out of your arses because after 9/11, if they weren't involved, they had the ideas in how to attack the US. The best thing we can do is take away ruthless, hostile regimes in the Middle East that are against us and deny the opportunity for them to have that support. And Saddam was a big problem. EVERY INT'L AGENCY, EVERY POLITICIAN IS ON RECORD IN SAYING WHAT A THREAT SADDAM HUSSEIN AND IRAQ WAS WITH WMD. Bush finally did something about it and after 9/11 it took on an urgency to deal with these problems.
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