Reagan: worse than Bush?
Robert Parry asks "Was Ronald Reagan an Even Worse President Than George W. Bush?" and suggests that "a case could be made for putting Ronald Reagan in the competition" for Bush's bottom spot:
Granted, the very idea of rating Reagan as one of the worst presidents ever will infuriate his many right-wing acolytes and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.But there's a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan's presidency.
It's a possibility that I had initially dismissed, although perhaps I was too hasty in doing so. Parry lays out a decent case, discussing Afghanistan, Wall Street greed, union-busting, and deregulation--but Parry's observation that "Reagan's team created a faux reality for the American public" resonated strongly for me:
Reagan had become a pied piper luring the American people away from the tough choices [oil dependence, environmental degradation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation] that Nixon, Ford and Carter had defined.With his superficially sunny disposition - and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments - Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.
Reality doesn't matter if you feel good about it, right?