Friday, June 19, 2009

Fuckups From Beyond The Grave

Think Progress. Links at site and video if you must.

Caught Up In Nostalgic Reagan Hysteria, ‘Student Of History’ McCain Credits Him For 1968 Prague Spring

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been having a tough time with the current situation in Iran. He has been criticizing President Obama’s “hands off” approach and encouraging him to get more involved (despite expert opinion that says otherwise). But former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — a McCain supporter whom McCain recently called “the smartest man in the world” — said this week that he thinks Obama “has handled this well.”

Last night on Fox News, McCain and Sean Hannity joined in with the right wing’s Reagan-era hysteria, with Hannity arguing that Obama should offer “some moral support the way that Ronald Reagan offered moral support” to anti-communists. But in this instance, McCain got carried away, crediting Reagan for something that happened well before he became president:

McCAIN: You and I are both students of history and we’ve seen this movie before. When Ronald Reagan stood up for the workers in Gdansk in Poland, when he stood up for the people of Czechoslovakia, in Prague Spring, and America did. And some good Democrats did, too.

Perhaps McCain needs a new history lesson. The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia when Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek allowed greater speech and assembly freedoms when he came to power… in January 1968. Ronald Reagan had just completed his first year as California’s governor at that time. Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops invaded eight months later to end the reform movement.

Epic fail F in History, Johnny boy. Goddam, I'm glad that senile old bastard didn't get elected president. Moosebreath'd had him committed by now and we'd really be in the shit.

In actual fact, Reagan really did know how to deal with Iran. He and his CIA connection G.H.W. Bush were the ones who got Iran to NOT release the hostages so he could be elected president.

McLame shouldn't feel too bad. Everybody gets it wrong when they invoke that particular Evil Spirit. Al Jazeera credited California's fiscal trouble to Reagan, which is probably true, being governor in 1978, which he wasn't, and the legislative supermajority coming in with Prop 13, which it didn't, having predated the Prop by 45 years.

The crisis didn't start with Schwarenegger; nor did it start with the grand fraud perpetrated by Enron. It began when Ronald Reagan was governor in 1978 and pushed through Proposition 13 -- a major tax reduction that also instituted the requirement of a 2/3 majority

Yeesh. You can't get much more wrong than that. Go get 'em, Badtux. I already did a little.

This goes out to McLame and allwrong Jazeera as a proposed new theme song:


Alison Krauss ~ Ghost In This House

Thanks to LuckystarCountry.

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