Obama Studying Reagan’s Presidency During Hawaii Vacation
Posted: December 24, 2010 Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, income inequality, the blogosphere | Tags: hero worship, Lou Cannon, Ronald Reagan, welfare queens 20 Comments
The Christian Science Monitor reports that President Obama is reading Lou Cannon’s latest book, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime during his Christmas vacation.
From the CSM:
This just in: President Obama on his Hawaii vacation may be engaging in activities hinting that he’ll take a more bipartisan approach to governance in the new year.
OK, we’re reaching a little bit here, but reading is a big thing for Mr. Obama when he relaxes, and his book list apparently has on it at least one very interesting title: “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,” by Lou Cannon.
This is not just a book about a president beloved by just about every member of the modern GOP – it’s probably the best Reagan book yet written.
The CSM thinks this is a terrific idea.
If Obama actually reads this book, instead of a George Pelecanos mystery or old “OK!” magazines that are lying around his rented mansion, he’ll learn a lot about Reagan’s mastery of the style of the presidency – and how that mastery of style becomes substance.
The CSM thinks Obama needs to learn about bipartisanship from Reagan? WTF?!
If Obama wants to be bipartisan, he should focus less on pleasing Republicans and more on pushing some Democratic policies for a change. But I doubt that’s what the CSM meant.
Obama won’t learn much about “reaching across the aisle” from reading about Reagan, who deliberately used racial politics to divide and conquer, and who loved to tell nutty anecdotes about “welfare queens.” The guy was far from bipartisan, unless you consider conning people into doing your bidding “bipartisan.”
Remember this lovely Reagan anecdote? From Wikipedia, Reagan’s famous story about a woman from Chicago’s South Side who supposedly represented all welfare recipients:
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”
This is President Barack Obama’s role model. Remember this interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal during the 2008 primaries?
Here are some relevant portions of the interview:
“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what is different is the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
“I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it has to do with the times. I think we are in one of those fundamentally different times right now were people think that things, the way they are going, just aren’t working.”
He also said:
“I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom,”
At the time, there was quite a bit of shock over this interview in the “progressive” blogosphere, before the progbloggers drank the koolaid and sold their souls. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were also alarmed by Obama’s comments. Here is what Edwards said at the time: (Sorry about the right wing source)
“Ronald Reagan, the man who busted unions, the man who did everything in his power to destroy the organized labor movement, the man who created a tax structure that favored the richest Americans against middle class and working families, … we know that Ronald Reagan is not an example of change for a presidential candidate running in the Democratic Party,” Edwards said.
Reagan also “was destructive to the environment by removing a lot of the regulation that existed,” Edwards added in a later telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change.”
And here is what Hillary Clinton had to say about Obama’s claim that Republicans were “the party of ideas over the last 10 to 15 years.”
“That’s not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years.” She said she didn’t consider it a better idea to privatize Social Security, eliminate the minimum wage, undercut health benefits, shut down the government or drive the country into debt. “I think we know what needs to be done in America.
But Obama went on to win the nomination and the general election. After two years, it’s pretty clear that Obama is playing “the role of a lifetime,” just as his hero Ronald Reagan did–Obama is pretending to be a Democrat.
Look, Lou Cannon is a terrific writer. I actually read Cannon’s first book about Reagan back in the ’80s, and it was quite good. But frankly, I was horrified by the man I read about in the book. Since I already know that Obama idolizes Reagan, I doubt he’ll be horrified by Reagan’s hatred of social programs.
I’d feel a whole lot better if Obama were reading a book about FDR during his luxurious vacation in Hawaii.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Ronald Reagan on AIDS:
1987
41,027 persons are dead and
71,176 persons diagnosed with AIDS in the US.
After years of negligent silence, President Ronald Reagan finally uses the word “AIDS” in public. He sided with his Education Secretary William Bennett and other conservatives who said the Government should not provide sex education information. (They are still saying it!)
On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: “How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let’s be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call ‘value neutral.’ After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons.”
Ronald Reagan on the issues:
Last time I heard about Dubya reading a book it was Camus’ The Plague right after Katrina. I nearly fainted.
I don’t think Bush read biographies of Democratic presidents in order ot learn how to be more bipartisan.
That’s the stated purpose? Sheesh, why doesn’t he read about Gerald Ford. He seemed to be good at that. Reagan just pissed every Democrat off that I knew. Ronald Reagan turned me into a Democrat. He was horrible!
Well, Tip O’ Neill supposedly liked Reagan, but I think he was faking.
Okay, you can find somebody a likable old fool without still realizing the fool part.
Obama doesn’t need to study Reagan any more. He’s got it down. Talk like an actor, steal from the poor and give to the rich.
The only bipartianship I want is subpoenas across the aisle. (lolsob) Imagine that back in 2006 I actually thought we might get some handed to Bush, Cheney, and associated other liars to Congress and the American people.
I need some Saturnalia cheer.
I still can’t believe there are folks out there that don’t see how conservative Obama is. I mean HE pushed DOLECARE on us. What kind of reform is that? He forced us all into overpriced private health insurance!
Yes Dak, how can they say he is moving towards center. He is way right if you ask me.
A move towards the center would be towards being a Democrat imho.
I’ve got some Christmas songs up above.
Lemme just give you this:
Glen Ford last week:
Paul Krugman last month
Some people have been ringing the alarm bell for quite some time.
Btw, when was the last time Obama lauded a Dem President? Even when he bothers to mention their achievements, he misrepresents them, the latest instance being the history of Social Security.
yup, and Charles Krauthammer’s in love with him:
That’s a huge warning bell!
The other thing I don’t understand is the charge he was never bi-partisan. Geithner and Gates are both Republicans!
Last week’s Glenn Ford post was amazing!
Best description I’ve seen yet …
Who were the three guys who guarded Reagan from talking to random people, because he was so gullible he’d regard any wacky thing anyone proposed to him as some amazing breakthrough for humanity? And one day they screwed up and someone slipped through their net and that’s how we ended up with the Strategic Defense Initiative? Was one Regan and one Deever, but who was the third? Maybe after reading Obama will realize he needs his own troika to guard him from coming into contact with Repubs and corporate donors who fill his head with nonsense and lead him down the primrose rose.
To all that come here to lurk and gain knowledge, friends of this blog, regular posters, and administrators – MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! May the peace of the season be with you and your families…… 🙂
Good grief, just the title of this post made me shudder.
I think I need to pull down one of my FDR biographies. Maybe if we all read about good liberals at once, we can counteract the poison of Obama and his old Republican icon.