Missing Reagan

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I miss this guy, everything about him.

I miss his optimism, his dignity, his self confidence, but mostly I miss his wit. Here was a president whose best jokes always seemed to be at his own expense. You can do that when you possess great faith not only in yourself but in your country. I didn’t agree with everything he did as President. In many areas he was a great success, but in others he failed miserably. In this regard he was not unlike all who came before or after him, a mixed bag.

But, who among us in this day and age of humorless political discourse doesn’t long for a President who routinely said things like this:

1. “If the government were placed in charge of the Sahara desert, there would be a sand shortage within three years.”
2. “It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
3. “I’m not worried about the deficit. It’s big enough to take care of itself.”
4. When responding to a reporter’s worry that he was known to take long naps in the afternoon, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency…even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
5. “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. But I have found that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”
6. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
7. When answering a reporter’s question about whether he was too old to run for President…”Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a President by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that I’ve stop worrying.”
8. First remarks at the beginning of a press conference, “Before I refuse to answer any of your questions, I have an opening statement.”
9. “One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay is to let the government run it.”
10. “I have wondered at time what the Ten Commandments would have looked like had Moses run them through Congress.”
11. “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
12. Responding to criticism of his foreign policy by Ed Asner…”What does an actor know about politics?”

Oh yes Mr. President, I surely do miss you.

Shut Up and Sing!

Suppose you’re an aspiring politician with low name recognition running for Governor somewhere. You schedule a rally, desperate to move the needle of the public’s attention. The last thing your campaign needs are television reporters filming empty chairs for the 11 o’clock news. So you do whatever it takes to put fannies in those seats and since you know that Americans aren’t going to show up to hear some gasbag talk about the minimum wage for an hour, you have to have a whiz-bang opening act.

Now, if you were a liberal politician running in Oregon, or say, San Francisco you might run Barbara Streisand out there. She would say a few vacuous words and then launch into a soaring rendition of “People Who Need People.” If you were a conservative politician running in someplace like Mississippi, or say, Texas you would pack those chairs with Ted Nugent who would bring the house down with his thunderous, “Cat Scratch Fever.” But then, he too would say a few vacuous words. And then all hell would break loose, because, while Babs can be an infuriating, airheaded nitwit, Nugent can be a vicious moron. And the powers that be in the national media who might give a liberal celebrity a pass for some inanity, will rip Ted Nugent a new one.

Conservative reaction to liberal celebrity politicking is usually something along the lines of, “shut up and sing!” Liberal reaction to the relatively few examples of conservative celebrity politicking is more like, “off with his head!!!!” But, in this particular case, they are right. Here’s what Mr. Nugent had to say:

“ A Chicago Communist-raised, Communist-educated, Communist-nurtured, subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.””

There’s plenty of over the top invective here to go around, and frankly, I don’t have a problem with most of it. After all, this is politics and we have a 1st Amendment right to say over the top inflammatory things in the heat of a campaign. But, if a line has to be drawn somewhere, subhuman mongrel would certainly be a good place to start.

Ted Nugent, being a washed up rocker, probably isn’t aware of the history of this phrase, but knowing him, even if he were he probably would still have used it. It’s the exact term used by the Nazis to describe and denigrate the Jews. In order to pave the way for their final solution, they first had to remove the humanity of their victims. If Jews aren’t even human, but subhuman mongrels, then they are ultimately no different than that rabid mongrel dog that must be put down lest he infect someone. To use this hideous term to describe Obama is especially horrible considering the darker chapters of our own national history of race relations.

So, does Mr. Nugent have a 1^st Amendment right to say such things without fear of imprisonment? Yes. But I have a right to denounce him for his hateful ignorance and distance myself from his remarks. If the politician he was shilling for has any brains, he will do the same thing.

Mr. Nugent, shut up and sing!