Lately, there’s been a flurry of lefties claiming that today’s GOP wouldn’t vote for Ronald Reagan because “he was too moderate”.
Is it true?
I said it was lefties, didn’t I? Of course not.
Last week, we dispensed with the idea that “Reagan raised taxes“, showing it was both a gross oversimplification and a complete lie.
Another point that the lefties will make is that Reagan signed the bill legalizing abortion in California.
Now, it’s a fact that I don’t follow pro-life issues as closely as some do. I remember Reagan using his bully pulpit to attack abortion, but I don’t remember the details. I’m pro-life, to be sure, but it’s not my most important issue. I leave that beat to others.
Two of those others are Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner, whose National Review piece three years ago adds the context the leftybloggers weren’t told by their superiors to include don’t:
[Honest] discussions of Reagan’s record on the abortion issue admit that as California governor he signed into law a liberalization of abortion that led to an explosion of abortions in the nation’s largest state. Reagan critics and supporters alike recognize this fact — one that is particularly tough to swallow for staunch pro-lifers. The full story, however, is more complicated — and worth setting straight now, 35 years after Roe v. Wade.
As with all “Reagan was a moderate!” memes, the story the lefties give you is a grain of truth amid a wad of inconvenient, omitted context, in other words.
June 14, 1967, Ronald Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act, after only six months as California governor…How did this happen?
When the issue surfaced in the first months of his governorship, Reagan was unsure how to react. Surprising as it may seem today, in 1967 abortion was not the great public issue that it is today. Reagan later admitted that abortion had been “a subject I’d never given much thought to.” Moreover, his aides were divided on the question.
Reagan began to vigorously study the issue and the Therapeutic Abortion Act. He asked his longtime adviser and Cabinet secretary Bill Clark — a devout Catholic who had contemplated the priesthood — for counsel. “Bill, I’ve got to know more — theologically, philosophically, medically,” Reagan confided. Clark loaded up the governor with a box of reading materials, which he took home and read in semi-seclusion. Edmund Morris later said that, by the time the Therapeutic Abortion Act reached his desk, “Reagan was quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas.” Years later, Reagan remarked that he did “more studying and soul searching” on the issue than any other as governor.
Nonetheless, he signed the bill. Reagan and his staff calculated that if he vetoed the bill, his veto would be overridden by the state legislature. Therefore, he decided to do what he could to make the bill less harmful, arguing for the insertion of certain language that eliminated its worst features and allowed for abortion only in rare cases — such as rape or incest, or where pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother.
In other words, Reagan seized the second-worst outcome available to him; he negotiated to try to make the bill less onerous.
And the results? Today they’d call it a “teaching moment”:
The Therapeutic Abortion Act became law. And as would happen with nearly every abortion law in the years ahead, the mental-health provision was abused by patient and doctor alike….Reagan was shocked at the unintended consequences of his action. Morris said Reagan was left with an “undefinable sense of guilt” after watching abortions skyrocket. Cannon claims this was “the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation.” Clark called the incident “perhaps Reagan’s greatest disappointment in public life.”
And Reagan learned from the mistake and the – spending the rest of his political career as one of the voices of the pro-life movement.
As we noted on the “Reagan Raised Taxes” issue, it’s not that Reagan was a moderate; it’s that he made the mistake of trusting Democrats on the tax issue, and ignoring the very real political and social motivations behind the infanticide movement.
We all know better than that.
Your lefty friends, cow-orkers and neighbors likely do not. So set them straight.
Mitch said: Years later, Reagan remarked that he did “more studying and soul searching” on the issue than any other as governor.
Consult with Nancy’s astrologer did he?
Mitch, that kind of soul-searching approach and obvious willingness to compromise is not a part of the political environment today – either on the left OR the right. It seems today that everyone is entering the political arena with all of the answers.
Not only do they (All of them – not just conservatives) come to the table with many wrong answers, but they have wrong answers about many of the wrong questions.
What makes Reagan different from the likes of Arnie Carlson is that he is not alive to reflect on these things in the context of today’s political environment – and get himself into hot water. Reagan therefore, has become the great conservative “urban legend.”
The same sort of thing is happening on the liberal left when they talk (always fondly) about Hubert Humphry or Paul Wellstone. They, too, believe these politicians did no wrong or that they would agree with everything on the liberal agenda today.
Simply-put, trying to place a popular dead politician’s “stamp of approval” on today’s political agenda is problematic. We cannot possibly know what that politician would do – today.
“The infanticide movement”. Me like. It’s time those of us with conscience started to define terms, rather than allow those without to do so. I would love to see someone attempt to defend infanticide.
Go ahead, make my day.
Go ahead, make my day.
Where’s AC and his monolobe?
Leslie Hittner said”
“What makes Reagan different from the likes of Arnie Carlson is…”
What follows makes me think the comment was a longer “tl;dr”.
Debate on public policy led to a democratic process that created law? How ill-liberal!
Nobody is arguing that Reagan was a moderate. We’re arguing that Reagan was a moderate compared to today’s Tea Party Republicans.
It’s all well and good to explain away some of Reagan’s actions if you want. You may even be right to do so. But even if you’re right, I still think it’s true that someone with his pedigree couldn’t win a Republican Party primary today.
I was in high school and college during President Reagan’s time in office. Jeff, Clown, others, don’t try to tell me that you think Reagan was a moderate who you would support.
I recall the intense hatred you people had for “Bonzo”. “Ronnies” “regime” was going to destroy the world via nuclear stikes. Remember the old folks “forced to eat dog food due to Ronnie’s cuts”.
I have used this example before I believe….the UW-Eau Claire student newspaper portraying Nancy Reagan as a dog in their cartoons. They would put Mrs. Reagan’s head on a dogs body.
Reagan was a moderate compared to today’s Tea Party Republicans.
Bullshit, Jeff.
Reagan opposed the “Equal Rights Amendment”.
He called “comparable worth” an idiotic idea..
He insisted the policy of “Mutual Assured Destruction” was madness and rejected it firmly.
If Reagan were alive today, and under 60 years old, he would be leading the Tea Party..
I still think it’s true that someone with his pedigree couldn’t win a Republican Party primary today.
If we had a Reagan running today, that person would win with virtually zero opposition.
Honestly, Jeff, try to comment on something you know about.
In 2008, when Democrats had to choose between centrist Hillary Clinton and liberal Obama, they chose Obama.
In 2008 the GOP chose McCain, a moderate republican.
Democrats do themselves no favor when they believe that their talking points are more than talking points.
How about past Democrats trying to get elected today. Can you name me one former Democrat President who supported these two policies?
1– Trillion dollar plus annual spending deficits
2– Changing the 3,000 year-old definition of marriage to include homosexuals
The last Democrat elected president supported DOMA, kept spending inline with revenue, and proclaimed that the “era of big government is over”. No way could Bill Clinton win the Democrat nomination if he were running today. Too moderate.
On another topic, Linda Berglin announced her resignation in August to work for Hennepin County! Who can we run in that spot?!
In 2008 the GOP chose McCain, a moderate republican.
I was dumb/naive enough to believe that Democrats actually believed their talking-points hype for the previous 20 years about McCain. A moderate Republican who collected accolades for his maverick-y positions, someone Democrats respected, with whom they could work. I actually thought Democrats would be conflicted. Even if only slightly.
And then McCain became the Rethuglican candidate and selected Palin as the VP candidate. And the blades came out and I realized for good and ever that the left believes nothing they espouse and that they, in fact, have no principles other than those involved with acquiring and exercising power.
jdm, I had to remind some Democrat friends all the great things they had said about McCain. Including this line (circa 2000 when GW Bush was running for his first term):
“If the Republicans ran John McCain, I would vote for him”.
They seemed peeved in 2008 when I reminded them about that.
Being a Democrat means never having to say “well, I think…”
Being a Democrat means never having to say “well, I think…”
They may never have to, but then they go ahead and say that very thing anyway. See Rosenberg’s comment above which includes “I still think…” Of course, to “still think” something would seem to lay claim to some sort of tradition of doing so. YMMV.
The last Democrat elected president supported DOMA
And now thanks to paying attention to facebook ads, Sen. Stuart Smalley says its time to repeal DOMA, I can’t wait for 2014 so we can throw HIS incompetent ass out.
They seemed peeved in 2008 when I reminded them about that.
Heh. Imagine that.
I, like someone else upstream, am old enough to remember the Reagan years. I remember the vilification: as the Jonah G observed, “the best conservatives are always dead.”
The notion that the left is in any position to speak to Reagan’s qualities, good or bad, is ridiculous.
2014. Goodbye, carpetbagger Al. Take your sorry ass back to New York where it came from.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to send another carpetbagger back to where he belongs? I’m tired of the country being run like it is a Chicago ward.
One person on Fox tonight said that if Reagan was running in 2011 he would be rejected. Really no offense given the fact that the tea party will basically support Sarah Pallin and Michelle Bachman Reagan will probably run away with the Republican nomination.
Jeff Rosenberg said:
“Nobody is arguing that Reagan was a moderate”
Chances are, when you hear someone say “nobody is [doing something]”, that they will do it immediately afterward, or you can easily find examples of people [doing something] without much effort.
Nobody is arguing that Reagan was a moderate. We’re arguing that Reagan was a moderate compared to today’s Tea Party Republicans.
Right. And you (pl) are arguing it, as I’ve shown, with two untruths; that Reagan raised taxes (true, but he cut them even more, and cut them steeply when it mattered most) and that he was pro-choice.
It’s all well and good to explain away some of Reagan’s actions if you want. You may even be right to do so. But even if you’re right, I still think it’s true that someone with his pedigree couldn’t win a Republican Party primary today
Did you know that some conservatives – George Will among ’em – said the same thing back then?
And his “pedigree” was as a former liberal. Sorta like Michele Bachmann. And me.
I think – no, in fact the past two years of history prove – that you guys vastly underestimate the intellectual facility of the Tea Party and conservatives in general. The whole point of the Tea Party – the thing that scares the left the most about it – is that it’s not “conservatives”; it’s people who’ve come from all corners of the spectrum, and no corner of it, to agitate for change.
Reagan would do just fine.
“And then McCain became the Rethuglican candidate and selected Palin as the VP candidate.” Enough said.
“Nobody is arguing that Reagan was a moderate. We’re arguing that Reagan was a moderate compared to today’s Tea Party Republicans.”
Why in the world would anyone argue something so mind numbing silly as that? Is the assumption that since 30 years have passed since he was first elected president, no one will remember anything? I have noticed a “ground hog day” syndrome in politics, where what you argued yesterday, is forgotten today. Is that it?