Posted on 08/14/2009 9:51:18 PM PDT by Wanpeirui
President Barack Obama has rightly been regarded as the liberal equivalent of Ronald Reagan, if not the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt. Like Reagan, the current president combines an attractive and compelling personality with superb communication skills to blunt the hard edges of his ideology and appeal to the broad spectrum of non-ideological voters who decide most elections (and who decided the 2008 election).
Reagan also proved that it is possible, within limits, to govern successfully as an ideological president. Obama himself acknowledged this during the campaign, commenting that "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America ... He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it." For all of his talent, however, Obama has not grasped the fine points of how Reagan succeeded in advancing his agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The “new” Carter.
Bull to all this comparing to President Reagan. Reagan loved America and hated communism.
Are you freaking kidding me??
PURE B.S.!!!
Obama has no skills, other than the ability to dance like a marionette on strings, controlled by Soros and his co-conspirators.
Oh, and he reads a mean teleprompter!
Yeah... right....
Obama and Reagan should not even be spoken in the same breath. Ronald Reagan LOVED America, Obama HATES America. Reagan never wanted our country to become socialist, Obama wants this country to become Communist. Obama is a Jimmy Carter clone
Ha!
Reagan had something to say and it was backed up by 20 years of speaking substantively on a wide range of subjects.
Obama is simply a populist BS artist with a great fear of the facts, because he can’t afford to reveal his true agenda.
Kinda like saying that excrement is the new filet mignon because so many flies like it.
That’s a good analogy.
Obama IS a Jimuuh Cahtah clone. And I’ll bet you in the whole “one term” aspect, too.
Reagan was a communist, who knew? ;-)
To be perfectly clear, I do not agree that Obama has good communication skills. I think he is full of crap, and he puts my teeth on edge whenever he speaks.
Nevertheless, I thought the article was fairly good at debunking the MSM myth that Obama has anything to offer regarding leadership skills, or that in any way Obama can be compared to Reagan.
uhh,,,no.
The new Il Douche, yes. The new Reagan? No way in hell!
The article proceeds from a false premise, because it misses the most crucial difference in the election of Reagan compared with Obama.
The margin of difference in Obama’s victory was by people who elected him as a symbol, not for a specific agenda. Indeed, for the most part Obama spoke in the most general of platitudes, campaigning on the vague terms “hope” and “change.” Obama does have an extreme ideological background, but this was not publicized by the mainstream media, who held him up as a symbol of racial reconciliation.
In Reagan’s case, he was elected because of a very specific agenda that was clearly articulated in the debates and his speeches. This was in spite of unfair and sometimes vicious portrayals of Reagan in the media.
Because members of Congress understood that Reagan was elected because of his agenda, the political reality for them was to get behind the agenda in order to maintain political viability.
That is not the case with Obama; while politicians would be unwise to attack Obama personally because of his status as a symbol, Obama has no specific agenda that has been endorsed by voters and therefore should carry weight with Congress. However, Obama is fortunate to have Congress held by the same party, so he has the possibility of passing his agenda notwithstanding its unpopularity with voters, albeit at a certain political cost.
It starts off by saying Obama has an attractive and compelling personality. Right there it goes downhill. He has neither ingredient. Better to compare him with the cultist leaders that have gone down in flames through time. That’s all he was.
It would be an insult to compare him to an authentic personality of good nature and substantive character like Reagan.
“Obama” and “Reagan” in the same sentence is, well, just unacceptable.
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