Berlin Wall Week: Reagan, we win, they lose

When we said thank you President Reagan the other day, we meant thank you President Reagan.

To be a child of the 80's was to be a child of Reagan. 'These were the Reagan kids,' PJ O'Rourke remarked of the young men in Desert Storm.

When some state department flunky asked Reagan his plan for the Cold War he replied simply, 'We win, they lose.' And he meant it. 

Perhaps the greatest weapon in America's arsenal was Reagan's simple, but brilliant rhetoric. Surely Reagan delivered a devastating blow to the Soviet's sense of themselves when he said, 'What do the Soviets have that we would want?'

Reagan understood that the Cold War was not a contest between equals. The United States wasn't just right. We were better. In every way.

Everyone recalls the Morning in America ads, but here's another we found:

When President Reagan talks about children and young people, he's talking about us, down through the mists of time now. We're getting downright emotional watching this.

[He's not kidding-Ed]

This is the world Ronald Reagan made for us, and it is so much better than the one he inherited on January 20th 1981.

We'll say it again, thank you, President Reagan.

President's Day

Recently another one of those useless surveys of historians ranked Barry 12th. As noted in this space before it is not fair or prudent to rank a president just out of office. One should wait a good decade. I mean, I remember in 1989 they ranked Reagan near the bottom, behind Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan is how I judge a liberal. If they're still cracking the same pathetic 80's jokes, if they can't acknowledge his achievements, then I know I don't have to take them seriously politically.

Those achievements are as follows:

-Restoatation: A renewal of American spirit and pride after 20 years of decline
-Economic Growth: the conquest of inflation, the material improvement of Americans
-Confrontation with Iran and Libya
-Rebuilding of America's armed forces
-Winning the Cold War

Ronald Reagan is in my estimation the greatest post World War II president and the greatest peacetime president.

It's ok to be wrong, Libs. As far as I'm concerned being wrong about great issues is a Constitutional Right. I've gotten plenty of things wrong too, take TARP and the auto bailout for example. So it's ok to have been wrong about Reagan.

But we must also learn from our mistakes.

Three Strikes and You're In

So Barry says he would have won a third term.

Sorry, my fellow conservatives, but he's right. The president is personally popular and in the the end your voting for the guy you want to see on TV every night. Hey, ladies think he's hot, right? Right.

This is nothing knew.

Our own Ronald Reagan said he would have won again. Not only would he have defeated that usher from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, he would have ground him into dust and sold him off as fiber supplement (thanks P..J. O'Rourke).

Clinton wanted a third term. Sorry once again guys, but he would have beaten W. I dunno, Algore couldn't destroy W. maybe I'm underestimating my man. But I don't think so. Younger reader(s) should appreciate that in 2000 the nation was fat, dumb and happy in a way that it never had been before. Once we got out of the 2000's the 90's made the 80's feel like the 70's (thanks Dennis Hopper).

Which brings me to one of my favorite ideas for political reform: Repeal the 22nd Amendment limiting the president to two terms. One of my colleagues, known colloquially in the Stroock household as the Crazy Australian Professor, asked why we limited the president to two terms, it really handicapped him. Of course, she was coming off a decade plus of Prime Minister John Howard.

But she is right. The 22nd Amendment makes the president a lame duck midway through his second term if not before. It puts all kinds of pressure on to get things done in the last two years, the dreaded legacy quest. And it results in a mad scramble for the president's successor almost as soon as the 2nd term begins.

So give me three terms, but give it to me later.