Is it good when the media loves the president?

Post Reply New Topic

It's never good when the media panders to a political office.

The job of the media is to (albeit respectfully) hold those who hold political office accountable. Grill them, question their claims, demand answers and explanations.

When the media caters to a person and tosses them softballs for their term in office because they are enamored with them, they are not performing their role in a free society.

Why don't you consider the possibility...just the possibility...that Bush was being criticized NOT because of a "liberal bias" in the media...but because he was a complete dick?

Heresy!

Why don't you consider the possibility...just the possibility...that Bush was being criticized NOT because of a "liberal bias" in the media...but because he was a complete dick? Even if every criticism that you can think of against Barack Obama's policies has weight, Barack Obama has not gone to nearly the lengths that Bush did to be a perfect as*hole, and that is why he isn't catching as much flak as Bush did.

This is a general question, not specifically related to the liberal media (which comprises approximately 80% of American media) and their frankly transparent adoration of President Obama. Is it good for America when the mass media wants to fully and in every way cooperate with America's president, whomever he or she may be. Does this serve the citizens well, when the president's policies are rarely questioned?

There being no daylight between the press and the state is a hallmark both of the historical and present dictatorships. And one can see why such is vital to the sustaining of dictatorships -- the people, properly informed, can in most cases en-masse overthrow corrupt regimes. But constantly fed disinformantion by their country's reporters, the people remain oppressed, confused, and divided.

I can understand someone hating him and saying that he was an imperialist backwoods cowboy with strange religious views on the world

but...I'm not sure where the arshole criticism comes from.

At worst he

That and, who was it who started their presidency by directly insulting one of our biggest allies by sending a bust of Churchill given years ago back to them

The fact that his administration was the most corrupt in US history, but I realized in retrospect (see my post following the one you were responding to here) that this wasn't the primary reason that most people thought he was a dick.

What really caused people to hate GWB were the media pundits who ostensibly supported him. GWB was just another corrupted politician. Depressing, but nothing to write home about. Everyone in the media from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter created Shrub. The people who created Shrub were the same people who turned "liberal" into a vicious term of abuse. Those people who revived 1980s Era anti-communist spite created Shrub.

Yeah, yeah, I know all this. I actually started getting pissed at people back in 2005 for talking about how much they "hate bush." I thought, "well, where in the f**k were you in 2004, as*holes?" It was between 2004 and 2008 that GWB SOMEWHAT redeemed himself.

Look, thanks for responding with a thoughtful reply, but see my follow-up post on the subject. I think that I accomplished more there in explaining just WHY Obama gets better press than GWB did. However, the point I made earlier still applies: don't expect to get the same press as a dry, professorial black guy who made his living rehabilitating run-down urban communities if you have the image of a loud, obnoxious oil-slicked cowboy.

Ragtime was complaining, "the media hated one President that I liked, so why don't they hate this one that I don't like equally?" and he sounds a lot like a black guy saying, "why did they hire the white guy who bothered to shave, shower and dress appropriately, but they turned me away just because I smelled like a skunk, wore a Hootie and the Blowfish t-shirt to the interview, and spouted more urban slang than actual English? It's racism!" or alternatively the guy covered in swastika tattoos trying to convince me that he is victimized and persecuted for being a white guy.

Duh, lamebrain, they are two completely different animals, and the difference goes a little bit deeper than political party or skin color. That's all I intended to respond to, not so much to express my opinions on President Bush. Even if Bush doesn't actually deserve to be called the bad guy, even if Obama doesn't actually deserve his image, there is a lot there to explain the disparity other than some liberal conspiracy in the media. This "liberal media bias" crap is one of the main reasons that so many liberals view conservatives as mentally unstable.

I'd have to take an inventory of your beliefs of what happened. If you believe that he completely fabricated Iraq not even for national security and stabilizing the region but just to rape them for oil in assistance of his croney capitalist buddies or if you believe, like Jadakiss said, that he 'pushed down the towers' - on the mechanics of that set of beliefs I wouldn't be able to argue. Anything much short of that though... did you miss Nixon? Even moreso did you miss the Kennedies? Stuff that happened in the 50's and 60's oval offices made Clinton filandering with employees look mild.
Again if you're a 9/11 truther I suppose that makes sense but, it doesn't make sense from many other angles.

I don't appreciate the caricature, so I really don't want anything to do with you generally.

its very rare that I hear someone over 20 or 25

:
James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior was indicted on 41 felony counts for using connections at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help his private clients seek federal funds for housing projects in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Watt conceded that he had received $500,000 from clients who were granted very favorable housing contracts after he had intervened on their behalf. In testifying before a House committee Watt said: "That's what they offered and it sounded like a lot of money to me, and we settled on it." Watt was eventually sentenced to five years in prison and 500 hours of community service.
Although not convicted, Edwin Meese III, resigned as Reagan's Attorney General after having been the subject of investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel on two occasions (Wedtech and Iran-Contra), during the 3 short years he was in office.
E. Bob Wallach, close friend and law classmate of Attorney General Edwin Meese, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $250,000 in connection with the Wedtech influence-peddling scandal.
Lyn Nofziger – Convicted on charges of illegal lobbying of White House in Wedtech scandal.
Michael Deaver received three years' probation and was fined one hundred thousand dollars after being convicted for lying to a congressional subcommittee and a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after leaving the White House.
The Iran-Contra scandal. In June, 1984, at a National Security Council meeting, CIA Director Casey urged President Reagan to seek third-party aid for the Nicaraguan contras. Secretary of State Schultz warned that it would be an "impeachable offense" if the U.S. government acted as conduit for such secret funding. But that didn't stop them. That same day, Oliver North was seeking third-party aid for the contras. But Reagan, the "teflon President" avoided serious charges or impeachment.
Casper Weinberger was Secretary of Defense during Iran-Contra. In June 1992 he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of concealing from congressional investigators and prosecutors thousands of pages of his handwritten notes. The personal memoirs taken during high level meetings, detailed events in 1985 and 1986 involving the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger claimed he was being unfairly prosecuted because he would not provide information incriminating Ronald Reagan. Weinberger was scheduled to go on trial January 5, 1993, where the contents of his notes would have come to light and may have implicated other, unindicted conspirators. While Weinberger was never directly linked to the covert operations phase of the Iran-Contra affair, he is believed to have been involved in the cover-up of the ensuing scandal. According to Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to congress and the American public. Some of the notes are believed to have evidence against then Vice-President George Bush who pardoned Weinberger to keep him from going to trial.
Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor indicted for defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4. million.
{ Republicans will point out that Donovan was acquitted. And that really matters in Donovan's case, because he was a Republican. But it didn't matter for Clinton or any of his cabinet, most all of whom were acquitted, because they were Democrats!}
Elliott Abrams was appointed by President Reagan in 1985 to head the State Department's Latin American Bureau. He was closely linked with ex-White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver North's covert movement to aid the Contras. Working for North, Abrams coordinated inter-agency support for the contras and helped solicit illegal funding from foreign powers as well as domestic contributors. Abrams agreed to cooperate with Iran-Contra investigators and pled guilty to two charges reduced to misdemeanors. He was sentenced in 1991 to two years probation and 100 hours of community service but was pardoned by President George Bush.
Robert C. McFarlane was appointed Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor in October 1983 and become well-known as a champion of the MX missile program in his role as White House liaison to congress. In 1984, Mc Farlane initiated the review of U.S. policy towards Iran that led directly to the arms for hostages deal. He also supervised early National Security Council efforts to support the Contras. Shortly after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed in early 1987, McFarlane took an overdose of the tranquilizer Valium in an attempt to end his life. In his own words: "What really drove me to despair was a sense of having failed the country." McFarlane pled guilty to four misdemeanors and was sentenced to two years probation and 200 hours of community service. He was also fined $20,000. He received a blanket pardon from President George Bush.
Oliver North – Convicted of falsifying and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress. Conviction overturned on appeal due to legal technicalities.
John Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor, – guilty of five criminal counts involving conspiracy to mislead Congress, obstructing congressional inquiries, lying to lawmakers, used "high national security" to mask deceit and wrong-doing.
Richard Secord pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress over Iran-Contra.
Alan D. Fiers was the Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Central American Task Force. Fiers pled guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information from congress about Oliver North's activities and the diversion of Iran arms sale money to aid the Contras. He was sentenced to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service. Fiers agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for having his felonies reduced to misdemeanors and his testimony gave a boost to the long standing criminal investigation of Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor. Fiers testified that he and three CIA colleagues knew by mid-1986 that profits from the TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran were being diverted to the Contras months before it became public knowledge. Alan Fiers received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President Bush.
Clair George was Chief of the CIA's Division of Covert Operations under President Reagan. In August 1992 a hung jury led U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to declare a mistrial in the case of Clair George who was accused of concealing from Congress his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair. George had been named by Alan Fiers when Fiers turned state's evidence for Lawrence Walsh's investigation. In a second trial on charges of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice, George was convicted of lying to two congressional committees in 1986. George faced a maximum five year federal prison sentence and a $20,000 fine for each of the two convictions. Jurors cleared George of five other charges including two counts of lying to a federal grand jury. Those charges would have carried a mandatory 10 months in prison upon conviction. Clair George received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President George Bush.
Duane R. (Dewey) Clarridge was head of the CIA's Western European Division under President Reagan. He was indicted on November 29, 1991 for lying to congress and to the Tower Commission that investigated Iran- Contra. Clarridge was charged with five counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements for covering up his knowledge of a November 25, 1985 shipment of HAWK missiles to Iran. Clarridge was also suspected of diverting to the Contras weapons that were originally intended for the Afghan mujahaddeen guerrillas. Clarridge received a blanket pardon for his crimes on Christmas Eve 1992 from President George Bush.
Environmental Protection Agency's favoritism toward polluter. Assistant administrator unduly influenced by chemical industry lobbyists. Another administrator resigned after pressuring employees to tone down a critical report on a chemical company accused of illegal pollution in Michigan. The deputy chief of federal activities was accused of compiling an interagency "hit" or "enemies" list, like those kept in the Nixon Watergate period, singling out career employees to be hired, fired or promoted according to political beliefs.
Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations she politically manipulated the Superfund money.
Rita Lavelle was fired after accusing a senior EPA official of "systematically alienating the business community." She was later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served three months of a six-month prison sentence. After an extensive investigation, in August 1984, a House of Representatives subcommittee concluded that top-level EPA appointees by Reagan for three years "violated their public trust by disregarding the public health and the environment, manipulating the Superfund program for political purposes, engaging in unethical conduct and participating in other abuses.".
Neglected nuclear safety. A critical situation involving nuclear safety had been allowed to develop during the Reagan era. Immense sums, estimated at 200 billion or more, would be required in the 1990s to replace and make safe America's neglected, aging, deteriorating, and dangerous nuclear facilities.
Savings & Loan Bail-out. Hundreds of billions of dollars were needed to bail out savings and loan institutions that either had failed during the deregulation frenzy of the eighties or were in danger of bankruptcy.
Reckless airline deregulation. Deregulation of airline industry took too broad a sweep, endangering public safety.
Additionally:
Richard Allen, National Security adviser resigned amid controversy over an honorarium he received for arranging an interview with Nancy Reagan.
Richard Beggs, chief administrator at NASA was indicted for defrauding the government while an executive at General Dynamics.
Guy Flake, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, resigned after allegations of a conflict of interest in contract negotiations.
Louis Glutfrida, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned amid allegations of misuses of government property.
Edwin Gray, Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank was charged with illegally repaying himself and his wife $26,000 in travel costs.
Max Hugel, CIA chief of covert operations who resigned after allegations of fraudulent financial dealings.
Carlos Campbell, Assistant Secretary of Commerce resigned over charges of awarding federal grants to his personal friends' firms.
John Fedders, chief of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission resigned over charges of beating his wife.
Arthur Hayes, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration resigned over illegal travel reimbursements.
J. Lynn Helms, chief of the Federal Aviation Administration resigned over a grand jury investigation of illegal business activities.
Marjory Mecklenburg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources resigned over irregularities on her travel vouchers.
Robert Nimmo, head of the Veterans Administration resigned when a report criticized him for improper use of government funds.
J. William Petro, U.S. Attorney fired and fined for tipping off an acquaintance about a forthcoming Grand Jury investigation.
Thomas C. Reed, White House counselor and National Security Council adviser resigned and paid a $427,000 fine for stock market insider trading.
Emanuel Savas, Assistant Secretary of HUD resigned over assigning staff members to work on government time on a book that guilty to expense account fraud and accepting kickbacks on government contracts.
Charles Wick, Director of the U.S. Information Agency investigated for taping conversations with public officials without their approval.
As of March 27, 2007, it was only an indictment, but Bloomberg News was reporting that David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director, was indicted on charges of defrauding investors and banks of $1.6 billion while chairman of Collins & Aikman Corp., an auto parts maker that collapsed days after he quit.
Two types of problems typified the ethical misconduct cases of the Reagan years, and both had heavy consequences to citizens everywhere. One stemmed from ideology and deregulatory impulses run amok; the other, from classic corruption on a grand scale.
* The Pentagon procurement scandal, which resulted from the Republicans' enormous infusion of money too quickly into the Defense Department after the lean Carter years .
* Massive fraud and mismanagement in the Department of Housing and Urban Development throughout Reagan's eight years. These were finally documented in congressional hearings in spring 1989, after Reagan left office. Cost the taxpayers billions of dollars in losses. What made this scandal most shameful was that Reagan's' friends and fixers profited at the expense of the poor, the very people HUD and the federal government were pledged to assist through low-income housing. . .
Despite their many public lies about the matter, it was eventually proven that the Sales of weapons to Iran, followed by illegal financial support of the Central American Contras were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter. Of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision. Weinberger eventually acquiesced and ordered the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms. Large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials in an attempt to cover up the administration's extensive corruption.
Summary of Iran/Contra, Independent Counsel Report.
The views of some of his peers and associates:

* Jim Cannon (an aide to Howard Baker) reported that Reagan's underlings told him, "They told stories about how inattentive and inept the President was.... They said he wouldn't come to work – all he wanted to do was to watch movies and television at the residence." ( Landslide: The Unmaking of the President: 1984-88)

* Lee Hamilton (Representative from Indiana) in an interview with Haynes Johnson, told him:
"Reagan's only contribution [to the subject of the MX missile] throughout the entire hour and a half was to interrupt somewhere at midpoint to tell us he'd watched a movie the night before, and he gave us the plot from WarGames, the movie. That was his only contribution." ( Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years)

* Columnist Richard Cohen said, "This President is treated by both the press and foreign leaders as if he were a child.... It is major news when he honors a political or economic discussion with a germane remark and not an anecdote about his Hollywood days."

* President Mitterand of France asked Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau about Reagan: "What planet is he living on?"

* Mark Hertsgaard, wrote that "During Mr. Reagan's trip to Europe...members of the traveling press corps watched him doze off so many times – during speeches by French President Francois Mitterrand and Italian President Alessandro Pertini, as well as during a one-on-one audience with the Pope – that they privately christened the trip 'The Big Sleep.'" (On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency

* David Nyhan, Boston Globe columnist wrote
"He demonstrated for all to see how far you can go in this life with a smile, a shoeshine and the nerve to put your own spin on the facts."

* Reagan's good friend, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, "Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears."

* Columnist David Broder "The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan's ears is a challenging one for his aides."

* Patti Davis (formerly Patricia Ann Reagan) talking about her father, "He has the ability to make statements that are so far outside the parameters of logic that they leave you speechless." ( The Way I See It

* Larry Speakes (Reagan's former press secretary) describing what it was like preparing the President for a press conference: "...like reinventing the wheel." (Speaking Out: The Reagan Presidency from Inside the White House)

* Mark Green, "This loathing for government, this eagerness to prove that any program to aid the disadvantaged is nothing but a boondoggle and a money gobbler, leads him to contrive statistics and stories with unmatched vigor." (Reagan's Reign of Error)

* former president Jimmy Carter, March 6, 1984 "President Reagan doesn't always check the facts before he makes statements, and the press accepts this as kind of amusing."

* James David Barber, presidential scholar, "Ronald Reagan is the first modern President whose contempt for the facts is treated as a charming idiosyncrasy." ( On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, Mark Hertsgaard)
* Simon Hoggart :"His errors glide past unchallenged. At one point...he alleged that almost half the population gets a free meal from the government each day. No one told him he was crazy. The general message of the American press is that, yes, while it is perfectly true that the emperor has no clothes, nudity is actually very acceptable this year." in The Observer (London), 1986.

Instead of exposing him for his constant colossal misrepresentation of the facts, the so-called "mainstream news media" have perpetuated the myth of Ronald Reagan as
"The Great Communicator"
Here are examples of what he "communicated":
Prior to his Presidency :
Reagan, in 1965, describing Medicaid recipients. "...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts." –
Reagan, in 1966 : "Today a newcomer to the state is automatically eligible for our many aid programs the moment he crosses the border." – (In fact, immigrants to California had to wait five years before becoming eligible for benefits. Reagan later acknowledged his error, but repeated the same thing nine months later.)
Over a period of about five years, Reagan told the story of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexistent deceased husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000". The real welfare recipient to whom Reagan referred was actually convicted for using two different aliases to collect $8,000. Reagan continued to use his version of the story even after the press pointed out the actual facts of the case to him.
Reagan, opposing the expansion of Redwood National Park in 1966 : "A tree is a tree. How many more do you have to look at?" -
Reagan, in 1960 : "Hollywood has no blacklist." – ( FBI records have since shown that this was a lie, and that Reagan personally informed on several actors, later shown to be innocent, destroying their careers in the process.)
Reagan, in 1966 : "I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964." –
Reagan, complaining about student protests against Vietnam on the Berkeley campus in 1966 : "A small minority of beatniks, radicals, and filthy speech advocates . . . brought such shame to a great university." –
Reagan, prior to having national guard soldiers break up a peaceful protest on the UC Berkeley campus in 1969 : "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with." – ( The protesters were tear-gassed and fired upon with buckshot. One protester was killed and at least 128 others wounded. )
Reagan, in 1967, describing homosexuality. ". . . a tragic illness." – (When two of his aides were found to be gay that year, he asked for their resignations.)
Reagan, in 1976 "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal.." –
Reagan, in a speech he gave to a crowd in Atlanta, GA. "Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine." –
Reagan, describing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, arguably the primary legislative victory for blacks during the Civil Rights movement in 1980 : "...humiliating to the South..." –
Reagan, in a 1980 speech in Philadelphia, MS, a town famous for the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964. "I believe in states' rights..." – ("States rights" is used in the South as a code word indicating support of Jim Crow laws.)
Reagan, in 1979 : "80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees." – (This is still a personal favorite.)
As President :
Reagan,in 1980 : "I have flown twice over Mt St Helens out on our west coast. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that that one little mountain has probably released more sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere of the world than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind that people are so concerned about." – (At its peak, Mt. St. Helens released 1/40th as much sulfur dioxide as cars do every day.)
Reagan, in 1983 : "There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge." –
Reagan, in 1980 : "I've said it before and I'll say it again. The U.S. Geological Survey has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone is greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia." – . (Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are approximately 17 times those of Alaska.)
Reagan, in 1981: "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." (In fact, a single nuclear power plant can produce up to 22,000 cubic feet of of radioactive waste per year.)
Reagan, in 1980:
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" –
Reagan, referring to a supposed blind person who wrote him a letter in 1981 : "He wrote in Braille to tell me that if cutting his pension would help get this country back on its feet, he'd like to have me cut his pension." – (After reporter inquiries, no such letter was ever shown to have existed.)
the Killer Trees After opining in August 1980 that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," Reagan arrived at a campaign rally to find a tree decorated with this sign: "Chop me down before I kill again."
Reagan, in 1980 : "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything."
Reagan, in 1981 : "I never knew anything above C's." – (describing his academic record.)
Reagan, in 1982. (Later admitted by White House Spokesman Larry Speakes to be untrue.) "I never wear (makeup). I didn't wear it when I was in pictures." –
Ronald Reagan claimed in April 1982 "In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found guilty". When informed that the story was "just not true," White House spokesman Larry Speakes said, "Well, it's a good story, though. It made the point, didn't it?" Reagan repeated the story again on March 21, 1986 during an interview with The New York Times.
The Liberator. In November 1983, Reagan told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit assigned to film Nazi death camps. He repeated the story to Simon Wiesenthal the following February. Reagan never visited or filmed a concentration camp; he spent World War II in Hollywood, making training films with the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps.
Reagan, in 1983 : "We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years." –
Reagan, in 1984. (This laughable statement was promptly disputed and soundly proven false the very next day by G.E. Theater makeup man Howard Smith, Death Valley Days makeup man Del Acevedo, and debate panelist James Weighart, as well as Mayor Edward Bergin, recalling a recent presidential visit to Connecticut.)
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." –
Reagan, in 1984 : "I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli sale in advance or whether I approved replenishment of Israeli stocks around August of 1985. My answer therefore and the simple truth is, 'I don't remember, period'." –
Reagan, dodging reporters questions in 1985 : "They turned out the lights. That tells me I can't talk anymore." –
Reagan, explaining how a five cent a gallon tax on gasoline isn't actually a tax in 1982 : "It would be a user fee..." -
Reagan, justifying laying a wreath at a Nazi cemetery in Bitburg in 1985 : "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." – (He spent WWII in Hollywood, making films.)
Reagan, justifying his policies on Nicaragua, in 1985 : "They haven't been there. I have." (Ronald Reagan had never visited Nicaragua.) "They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country..."
Reagan, in 1985, (praising the government of P.W. Botha in South Africa, during the height of apartheid.) "They've done away with those committees. That shows the success of what the Soviets were able to do in this country." –
Reagan, in 1985, praising the Afghan Mujahaddin. "These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers." – {These "freedom fighters" included prominent leaders of Al Qaeda, such as Osama Bin Laden, as well as many of the leaders for the Taliban.)
Reagan, in 1985, ( responding to a reporter's question, "Mr. President, why don't we openly support those 7,000 guerrillas that are in rebellion rather than giving aid through covert activity?" referring to the brutal Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who indiscriminately attacked civilians.) "Well, because we want to keep on obeying the laws of our country, which we are now obeying." "Doesn't the United States want that government replaced?" "No, because that would be a violation of the law." -
Reagan, in 1987. ( At the time of the press conference, the U.S. was giving the indiscriminately murderous Contra guerrillas covert aid, in direct violation of the law. Reagan's lie was so obvious that members of the press corps laughed loudly and openly at his statements.) "If the question comes up at the Tower Board meeting, you might want to say that you were surprised." –
Arms for Hostages.: "We did not – repeat, did not – trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we," Reagan proclaimed in November 1986. Four months later, on March 4, 1987, Reagan admitted in a televised national address, "A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."
Reagan, in 1988 : "Facts are stupid things." –
Reagan, (during the latter years of his administration) : "I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." –
Reagan, in 1989 : "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." -(Reagan didn't even mention AIDS until 1987, by which time it had spread into the heterosexual population and over 25,000 Americans had died.) "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice" –
[ Remembering the Gipper in his own words]
At the nationally broadcast state funeral for President Ronald Reagan, his son Ronald, Jr. said of Reagan that while he was "deeply and unabashedly religious, he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians – wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage." He made it clear later that he was speaking of people like President George W. Bush.

Lol, I told you that I have absolutely no idea what you believe, and then I laid out a list of what beliefs could lend to the idea that GWB was THE most corrupt president ever. We've had 44 now and we've had some real characters, its very rare that I hear someone over 20 or 25 assert that GWB was the most corrupt we've ever had. To hear it now seems a bit extraordinary.