<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">Dear Visionaries:</span><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">
Every year on Reagan's birth anniversary I intend to continue to tear down the wall that is the Reagan myth. The resources and topics are nearly endless, so I will be busy for many years. If you don't want to read the whole thing, I leave you with one conclusion: "Reagan was not a liar; rather, he was just terribly confused."</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">I appended the full version that just appeared in the Daily News Los Cabos (circualtion 10,000), the Daily News' totally unofficial sister newspaper, filled with leads from Bloomberg News, the Washington Post, and many others. My columns appear alongside the columnists from these news outlets.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">I'm glad that my tenants have set up a heater in front of my kitchen sink, as the wall to the outside is poorly insulated. It's 80 degrees here in Cabo. Just thought I would mention it.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">Keep warm,</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">
<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">Nick</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">RONALD REAGAN AT 103:</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<b><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">WERE BOTH HE AND OBAMA “LIARS”?</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Make sure that I was telling you the truth.</span></i><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">—Ronald Reagan, February 25, 1983</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">We licensed his beguiling forgeries</span></i><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">—Gary Willis, <i>Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">It would be more accurate to say that Reagan extended</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">or even reignited the Cold War at the cost of well</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">over $1 trillion in additional U.S. military spending,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">—Robert Parry</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">RR [is] totally lost, out of his depth, uncomfortable. . . . </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">e did not listen attentively, looking away or staring at the papers in front of him. . . All</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">this—both the substance and human conflict—is above and beyond him.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px">
<span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">—Richard Pipes, Reagan’s national security adviser</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Those who criticize President Obama, sometimes with a hatred much more intense than that directed toward George W. Bush (whom I pitied more than disliked), focus on his many alleged lies. In what follows I want to argue that, if Obama is a liar, then former President Reagan was a bigger, and arguably, more dangerous one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">On Reagan’s 103st birth anniversary I want to examine his challenge to us all: “Make sure that I was telling you the truth.” As my main references, I will use the thoroughly researched book <i>There He Goes Again: Ronald Reagan’s Reign of Error</i> by Mark Green and Gail MacColl; and Will Bunch’s <i>Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy has Distorted our Politics and Haunts Our Future</i>. His deceptions and misstatements run the entire gamut, but I will focus on defense and foreign policy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">At a press conference Reagan declared that the Soviets were violating mutual agreements on nuclear submarines. Three week earlier the White House released a statement that there were no such violations.</span><br>
</p><p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">During the 1970-8os, Reagan kept repeating that the Soviet Union had attained military superiority. With Reagan’s approval (“Let her fly” in a marginal note),Vice-President George W. H. Bush set up a special “Team B” intelligence group, because right-wingers had convinced them that the CIA (presumably the A Team) was “soft” on Communism. Team B’s false reports led to the U. S. to initiate every major weapons system in the 1980s. There were two major results: (1) the Soviet Union was bankrupted in trying to keep up; and (2) defense appropriations increased to $ 1 trillion, much of which was not necessary. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">In the presidential debate of October 28, 1980, Reagan claimed that President Jimmy Carter had shut down major defense programs. Among those weapons mentioned was the MX missile, which was actually under full production, and the Trident submarine. The first Trident was launched on April 7, 1979, during Carter’s term. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Georgia,serif">On March 3, 1981, Reagan maintained that the U.S. had unilaterally disarmed during the 1970s. Of course Presidents Nixon and Carter did no such thing. Green and MacColl gives all sorts of evidence to the contrary, but here is a significant fact: “In 1970 the U.S. had 4,000 strategic warheads. By the end of the decade it had 10,000.” This is obviously arming a nation, not disarming it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Georgia,serif">On October 17, 1981, Reagan claimed that the Soviets, “unlike us,” believed that a nuclear war is winnable. Green and MacColl quote a Defense Department manual, Reagan’s senior national security adviser, and Reagan’s own 1983 budget as evidence that the U.S. believed that a nuclear war was indeed winnable.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="line-height:14.720001220703125px;font-family:Georgia,serif">On May 13, 1982, Reagan falsely and ignorantly claimed that submarine launched nuclear missiles “can be recalled.”</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Further mischaracterizing Carter’s achievements, Reagan charged that he did not add anything to what Nixon had accomplished with regard to China. The truth was, however, that Carter oversaw long and tough negotiations for the 1979 agreement to normalize relations between the two countries.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">In a radio address on December 6, 1986, Reagan said that the U.S. was dealing with “moderates” in Iran, but on July 29<sup>th</sup> of the same year he had said that they were “the most radical elements.” He authorized a deal to sell arms to enemy mullahs in return for the release of hostages in Lebanon.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">In an interview with <i>Time</i> magazine (12/8/86) Reagan stated that “another country was facilitating those sales of weapon systems to Iran.” Of course the truth was that his own government did that. Repeatedly, he said that he could not remember if Oliver North had told him about one of the most cynical moves in American diplomatic history: selling arms to our enemy Iran to finance the a war against the duly elected Nicaraguan government.</span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">On April 14, 1983, Reagan falsely reassured Americans that “we are not trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.”</span></p>
<p style="margin-left:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Early in 1987 Reagan declared that his administration would never negotiate with terrorists. In an address to the nation on March 4, 1987, Reagan admitted that he had lied: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” Are we suppose to feel better when the leader of the Free World confesses that he is a heart-felt liar, who is still reluctant to face the facts?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.25in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in">Iran-Contra was arguably a far worse scandal than Watergate.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in">The Reagan administration devised an illegal plan, which circumvented the Boland Amendment, by which Congress prohibited funding the Nicaraguan Contras.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in">William Bunch states that Iran-Contra “made Nixon’s abuses seem more like the ‘third-rate burglary’ that Nixon’s aides famously claimed it was.”</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.25in">Fourteen Reagan associates were prosecuted for Iran-Contra crimes.</span><br>
</p><p style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in">As early as January 1987, Democratic Senate leaders met to discuss the possibility of impeaching Reagan. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in">According to Bunch’s sources, they agreed that that the president was “too old” and “did not have the mental ability to fully understand what had happened.”</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in">House speaker Jim Wright, who would later be forced to resign over a book deal, believed that impeaching Reagan would be “too divisive,” and he admitted that he “may have bent over backwards in error” in not finding an impeachable offense. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in">Republicans had no such qualms about dividing the nation when they impeached Clinton. Nixon and Clinton were impeached for far less substantial reasons, and now Obama haters want to try him for charges that are not impeachable offenses at all.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">With regard to his promise that those with their own health insurance could keep it, Obama should have qualified that statement with “only if it met the criteria of the Affordable Care Act.” Politifact made it the “Lie of the Year” only to balance out Mitt Romney's record number of “Pants on Fire” in 2012.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;text-indent:0.5in">Reagan’s First Motion Picture Unit edited some of the gruesome footage from the Nazi death camps. Later Reagan, who had never been in the military, said that he, in an army uniform, had taken the pictures on the spot. This man was not a liar; rather, he is just terribly confused.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Under Reagan the national debt tripled, primarily because of unnecessary defense funding; and, after wiping out Clinton’s surplus, Bush nearly doubled it. Under Obama the national debt has increased 63 percent, but much of that was due to the reduced revenues of the Great Recession and irrational spending cuts of the sequester.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Reagan and Bush borrowed money at high interest rates to wage one cold and two hot wars under false pretenses, but Obama saved the economy by borrowing money at near zero rates. He has also reduced the annual deficit every year and now it is at $514 billion, its lowest since 2008. And that’s no lie.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:14.720001220703125px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.</span></p>
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