I have never fully understood the reasons for placing President Ronald Reagan on a pedestal. In my opinion, he was a shallow tool of a group of shadowy plutocrats. He gave Grover Norquist and his anti-tax pledge its first gloss of legitimacy, which contributes to the gridlock in today’s Washington D.C.
Reagan severely damaged trade unionism in the U.S. when he fired the air traffic controllers after their strike. It has yet to recover. After Congress passed legislation to prohibit action in Central America in support of the contras of Nicaragua, senior Reagan administration officials cooked up the transfer of arms to Iran to raise cash in support of the illegal actions in Nicaragua. It remains to be proven conclusively what Reagan knew and when because so much evidence was destroyed before any inquiry could be launched.
Several went to jail but no formal charge was leveled against Reagan. He stated that, when done in his role as commander-in-chief, no action could be considered illegal, echoing Richard Nixon. When the historical facts are sprinkled with pixie dust, we run the danger of electing more like him, and Bush I (who pardoned the rest of those found guilty in Iran-Contra), Bush II, who gave us Dick Cheney and Iraq, and possibly Mitt Romney. It should be enough to notice that the Romney foreign policy team comes mostly from that of the Bush II administration. Do we want to repeat the mistakes of Bush II? It would be more than a nightmare.
Jack McClurg
Marysville
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