Redstate

(in my case) about 10 years after he left office. Now he's my true hero.

We weren't thinking back then. We were feeling.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

I always wondered if he knew how powerful those words would end up being when he spoke them.

Thank God for Ronald Reagan.

Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!

great post on this over at powerline. with details from the speach writer.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017914.php

Recall that Reagan then stood much where Bush does now - 6 1/2 years into his term, rejected at the polls the prior November, facing a Democratic Congress and a hostile media, mired in scandal, increasingly overshadowed by the coming Presidential race, abandoned by many of his best subordinates, given little credit by elite opinion for a long-booming economy. But Reagan had one big advantage: he was Reagan.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

Most of my life I felt the Cold war would be a permanent condition. I had drunk the cool aid and was resigned to living with MAD. I can never forget the hope that great man inspired.

The sad thing was how our press attacked him as a simpleton for that speech. That was when I realized how biased our press was. They just weren't on our side.

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Yes, the derided star of "Bedtime for Bonzo" did what all his predecessors from FDR could not do: expose the USSR as an impossible fraud and reclaim the freedoms lost for Europe after WWII.

He didn't do it alone, but he was indispensable.

(Although it would be wonderful to have another Reagan. Can't be greedy, though.)

We can neve have too many reminders.

Fortuna Favet Fortibus

that I would vote for Reagan if I could because Bush was a good leader and we were due for the death of another President while he was in office, which would put the superior candidate in office. At the time I was too young to vote. Four years later I eagerly pulled the Reagan lever because of Reagan because of who he was and not his VP. And five or six years after that I learned my earlier opionion of Bush was greatly mistaken. He was at best a caretaker of the Reagan legacy and lacked the vision and will that made Reagan great.

I was ignorant of and avoided politics in the seventies... not voting. With the election of 1980, I was still on the sidelines but surely being drawn in by Mr. Reagan. Within his first year at the helm, I was on board. In 1984 I proudly cast my first vote in a presidential election for Ronald Reagan.

I graduated from University of California at Santa Barbara in 1974. Ronald Reagan's signature is on my diploma. At the time it didn't mean a thing. Today it is one of my prize possessions.

Ronald Reagan was a giant of a man because of his ideas and his courage. With the passing of time, he looms ever larger.

Jack
The World's Ruined

...some of us, when we were kids, thought the Monkees were better than the Beatles.

Between 1980 and 1984 I went from believing Mr. Reagan was a "fascist" to sitting at a "Reagan Country" voter reg. table in front of the Student Union and enduring the (surprisingly good-natured) taunts of my peers.

--furious

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader

How many rabid Bush haters will grow to respect the man over the next twenty years? It could well be as many as have come to respect RWR now.

---
(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community