The quote below is well put by an author from Australia. Of course he forgot that Reagan actually TANKED the economy after he took over in January of 1981. When Reagan took office unemployment was 7.7%, by August of 1983 his third year it had soared to 10.8 percent.
The author also forgot about the 250 Marines that Reagan got blown to bits in that outpost in Beirut. Or that he was the first to give amnesty to illegals. In a stroke of his pen he made them legal, most were later awarded with U.S. citizenship. His obsession with de-regulation gave us the S&L scandal of the 1980's that ended up costing the tax payers 900 billion dollars. Truly, Reagan the hype does not jive with the reality.



"Firstly, let’s keep politics out of this. Whatever your affiliation, Reagan just doesn’t deserve all that hype! He was always a popular President, but he has since been recast (mainly by conservative historians) as a great one as well. Yes, you can easily place him on that pedestal. You would merely need to ignore the Iran-Contra scandal, the huge budget deficits, his environment ignorance, his do-nothing reaction to the looming AIDS epidemic, his courting of Saddam Hussein, and numerous other blunders. “Reagan was truly a great president whose achievement rivals that of Franklin Roosevelt,” wrote conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, in his 1997 reappraisal where he credited Reagan for everything from the strong Clinton economy (go figure) to world peace (while somehow forgetting to mention Iran-Contra anywhere in the book).

But Reagan belongs in this slide show for one thing in particular: his reputation as the man who ended the Cold War. D’Souza and others have suggested that Reagan’s arms build-up was a cunning ploy to bankrupt the USSR, which is a relief, because I always thought it was a cunning ploy to risk everyone’s life. Reagan showed little sign of burying the hatchet with the “evil empire” (as he called them) until the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1985. Even then, he was very uncooperative in peace talks with Gorby until, facing scandal and low approval ratings, he was willing to do anything – even something crazy like helping to save the world. As for Russia’s bankruptcy… The war in Afghanistan started in 1979. Reagan was still in California."
I lived all through the Reagan years. I could never see all of the hype. To this day we are paying for his obsession with de-regulation. I was born in the Eisenhower years. Even worse Reagan like Bush II was a mere figurehead. They used to hand him a script to read every day. He was known to fall asleep in cabinet meetings. Reagan was an ACTOR and knew how to play in front of the cameras. In truth, there is not one lasting legacy from Reagan.

As for hm being "smaller government" is is simply a lie. EVery year the White House submits their own budget proposal. Not ONE Reagan budget contained less spending than what Congress agreed to. Not ONE. David Stockman his own director of OMB threw up his hands and quit because and I quote, "It became painfully obvious that Ronald Reagan NEVER intended to cut spending." The first Bush paid dearly for all of Reagan's neglect. Reagan made Saddam Hussein into the tyrant that he became. He sent Rumsefeld to Iraq to shake hands with Saddam 83.
I kn ow "Glock" he was the best because Rush Limbaugh, who never even voted for him, says so.
RIght wingers think that if they just call Obama enough childish names that they will become true.