1) Reagan was able to communicate conservative ideas in a way that the People could understand them and would believe in them. Paul cannot. If somebody were to step on the national stage today with the ideas and communicative ability of Reagan, he would be elected in a landslide.

2) Reagan believed in protecting Israel. Paul does not. Reagan believed in defeating tyranny around the world and promoting freedom. Paul does not. Paul would never have asked Gorbachev to tear down the wall, and his ‘non-interventionist’ policy would most likely put the US at risk of serious attacks from multiple nations.

The Tower commission declared that President Reagan did not have anything to do with Iran Contra leading to hostages, but was nonetheless criticized for not knowing about the actions of those under him.

Love that particular part of the mythos. Impossible to disprove. Of course we can certainly look at how Reagan handled hostage situations later in his presidency. He got “very busy”…negotiating.

These are excerpts from the first article: According to Powell, the US cannot “blow a whistle one morning” and have all American forces just leave.

“If we pull out, if we stop this operation now, we will hand Al-Qaeda a terrific victory,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the American Enterprise Institute and an early advocate of the policy.

“The Iraqi government, right now, is a terrific ally in the war on terror. There have been more Iraqis killed fighting Al-Qaeda than in any other nation of the world. The question is, are we going to stand by them?”

These are excerpts from the second article:

It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace. He terrorizes and brutalizes his own people. He has launched war on two of his neighbors. He devotes enormous effort to rebuilding his military forces and equipping them with weapons of mass destruction. We will all be better off when he is gone.

Saddam’s strategic objective appears to be to dominate the Persian Gulf, to control oil from the region, or both.

Citing Powell as a Republican is almost laughable at this point. It would be like me quoting Zell miller to state how Dems feel. If Powell was willing to support that GOP, he would have ran against and probably defeated President Clinton in 1996. Congrats on finding 2 GOP affiliated authors out there who disagreed with the war before it started and before the surge.

So Powell was for the war? http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0811-09.htm

Before he was against the war? (your article)

Before he was for the war?
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/19/powell.transcript/

My original statement was that President Reagan may have reacted more strongly than W if 9/11/01 occurred on his watch. My closest proof? Iran released the hostages the day he was sworn in, not because they hated President Carter, but because that President Reagan would have had a very busy afternoon had they not.

The Powell Doctrine was born out of the Reagan administration post Lebanon problem and implemented by Bush 1. And in fact this is what BRENT SCOWCROFT wrote pre-Iraq war. SCOWCROFT helped with the Powell Doctrine and It is no secrete now Powell was not for the invasion plan.

Powell tried to talk Bush out of war

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.
“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2042072.ece

Don’t Attack Saddam

It would undermine our antiterror efforts.

by BRENT SCOWCROFT

Mr. Scowcroft, national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, is founder and president of the

Forum for International Policy.\
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

The truth is, Reagan stuck a knife into the last best hope for humanity.

Reaganite Ed Meese wrote in a May 24, 2006, op-ed piece for the New York Times that the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens was pushed by the Democratic majority in the House and that President Reagan thought it reasonable. In the editorial, Meese went on to describe the actual outcome and negative consequences of the amnesty. Anyone may Google the 1986 amnesty and read about the fraud; the millions more illegal aliens than the original projected number who ended up being amnestied; the immediate, continuing massive increase in illegal migration; and more. — Donna

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX: “In fact, a compromise was agreed to back in 1986. There was a solemn vow that we would bring up amnesty one time, once, and only once, and there would be no more amnesty.” — Congressional Record, H 8632, 10/2/90

The 1986 legislation was supposed to be a trade of sorts: amnesty for what some thought would be increased enforcement on employers of illegal labor. But the business interests had a fix in. The 1986 law was written to hamstring the states’ previous authority to enforce hiring law related to illegal labor, and communication to that effect went out from the feds to state labor departments soon after. That wasn’t the only fast one pulled in that legislation. And the federal law itself never saw much enforcement. — Donna

“The IRCA [1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act amnesty] has been tied to terrorism. Mahmud Abouhalima, a leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was legalized as a seasonal agricultural worker as part of the 1986 IRCA amnesty. This allowed him to travel abroad, including several trips to Afghanistan, where he received terrorist training.” — NumbersUSA

The GOP needs to, once again, become the vehicle for conservatism. We’ll see if that happens in 2010. If not, it could spell trouble for America.

We’ll see if America is ready to wake up. I’ll leave you with a quote by one of our Founding Fathers:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”~Thomas Jefferson

I agree the video is choppy in places, I did not make it. RR and RP are two different men and have some differing views, but not too many. RR even endorsed and campaigned for RP in his first Congressional bid. I believe the reason RP is more pessimistic is b/c of the current times we are living in. Our government is completely out of control in size. The people must act to dismantle this unprecedented power, peaceably mind you. I believe this country has some fight left in her. The big government scum in Washington needs to be replaced. We all can do that in 2010.

Just for you, I killed 10 minutes of my life and saw exactly what I expected to see. I saw a video that tried to make RP look as much like RR as possible. I won’t say that they didn’t hold the same views on some issues, but there first few comparisons were a stretch. Some of the other ones were as well. One or two issues were almost exactly the same, but they were almost out of context. I think if RR had been president on 9/11/01, he would have reacted more like W than RP. He might have gone further than W, we will never know.

All things being equal, people vote for the person they like the best. Reagan inspired people to try to live up to their potential. He was an optimist and saw the best in people. He was the great communicator, not only because he could explain his policies but because he got the average person to buy into them as well. He inspired me. I’ve personally met about half the Republican candidates for president since 1992. I even shot a game of pool and drank a beer with John McCain. I’d trade them all for one minute with Reagan.

Being an “optimist” and having a “likable quality” aren’t what makes people ideologically similar. Ideas matter. Words matter. Did you even watch the video?

No, I don’t believe Erick would support Goldwater.

Erick wouldn’t support grandmas, puppies, or college football if Rush/Beck/Hannity turned on them for some reason. The political entertainment class seldom really “supports” anything, because taking specific stands FOR things splits the audience. The money is in the opposition, because it’s easy to tap into anger and rally people AGAINST things.

To be fair, this works across the board. Keith Olbermann became a loony-left icon during the Bush years, when he could just focus on the negative and didn’t have to take sides on what a health care bill should actually look like. It’s much easier to be on opposition than in power.

Do you even know anything about the woman beyond what Erick has told you to think about her? Of course not.