Feb
2
2
Wheels They Turn And Gears They Grind
Shorter Peggy Noonan:
Above: Hid his drugs from the narcs and his guns by the park
- Each February Americans lift a glass to the president who was taller than Errol Flynn, told funnier jokes than Art Buchwald, returned Jerry Ford to glory, convinced Mikhail Gorbachev to live in Southern California and stood astride the din like a Colossus. A well-hung, twinkling-eyed Colossus who knew every elaborate handshake there ever was.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
Gavin adds:
DocAmazing said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:37
She compared Reagan to Art Buchwald?
What’s next? Will he be favorably compared to Martin Luther King, Jr?
America’s Right Wing: You’re One Of Us, Whether You Know It Or Not!
BrooklynRaider said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:39
That’s pretty much exactly the way they see Reagan. Believe me, I just spent a weekend with these people, I saw it over and over again.
Their problem, though, is that the rest of America doesn’t see it that way. I mean, Americans liked Reagan, probably now they think he was a pretty decent president, especially compared to the clown we’ve got now (I think he was a lousy president, for the record, but I’d take him over the clown we’ve got now).
But only the conservative movement sees him as this messiah thing. And therefore nobody else will be good enough for them. Every time a conservative politician talks to a crowd of these folks, you can hear him straining under the burden.
“Reagan would have said it better. Reagan would never have let us down like this. Why can’t he be more like Reagan?”
For Republican politicos, it’s got to be like living in the shadow of your dead older brother, who was homecoming king and varsity QB and perfect in every way, and now your parents aren’t even interested in you anymore.
Marco said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:45
Aw. Another Peggy Noonan gusher over Ronald Reagan. Lovely and surprising she didn’t mention Reagan’s sidekick, Babe the Blue Ox. They were inseparable clearing a path for pioneers or something like that.
bpower said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:46
Hmm, I’ve been put in this spot before after reading one your “shorter” bits. It cant be that fucking stupid I think, they’re exaggerating for comic effect. Then , like an idiot, I click the link. Sure enough its like a retarded game of madlibs.
kenga said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:50
Reagan was a red-baiting intellectual lightweight with the soul of a used-car salesman’s confessor.
He did have a few moments that made some of us who feared and loathed him say “Well, that could have gone so much worse!” (negotiating with Gorbachev would be most of them).
I liked him in retrospect, I guess – the way I’d like prostate cancer(metastisized) when compared to being fed feet first into a non-industrial woodchipper.
steve_e said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:53
Look at that wistful look on Noonan’s face. Her devotion to Reagan, the Republican Demigod, is a little sad.
steve_e said,
February 2, 2007 at 18:54
Excuse me, I meant “very sad.”
Ronnie Raygun's Greatest Hits said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:05
“I don’t recall.”
“Ketchup is a vegetable.”
“Mr. Qaddaffi, tear down this tent!”
Essjay said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:14
I like this cartoon on remembering Reagan.
mikey said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:18
I remember sitting in Ted’s in San Anselmo, lingering well into the afternoon over a long lunch with friends and wine when they turned on the tv ’cause Reagan was absorbing Hinckley’s lead. I don’t remember being all torn up about it like we were for either Kennedy or MLK. We watched with interest, but it really didn’t harsh the mood, y’know?
Goodness. Was that really 26 years ago?
mikey
Marion in Savannah said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:24
“Well hung?” And she would know this because… OOOOH, Nancy will just scratch her eyes out.
Jay B. said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:31
Travis,
Excellent use of Camper’s Sweethearts. One of the great snark/smart songs evah! Thanks for making me think about it.
Worst. President. Ever. said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:45
… and who can forget Raygun’s famous pollution analysis: cows fart too much methane into the environment.
ifthethunderdontgetya³² said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:54
“Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation.”
It was the killer trees, WPE.
Marco said,
February 2, 2007 at 19:56
I also love that screen grab of Peggy. It captures that “Perfect Storm” of smugness and totally fabricated sincerity we’ve come to expect from her.
Smiling Mortician said,
February 2, 2007 at 20:08
Well, and “AIDS? No such thing. La la la.”
Incontinentia Buttocks said,
February 2, 2007 at 20:12
For Republican politicos, it’s got to be like living in the shadow of your dead older brother, who was homecoming king and varsity QB and perfect in every way, and now your parents aren’t even interested in you anymore.
So are you saying it’s kinda like being Teddy Kennedy (or, from a more personal perspective, JFK himself)?
MrWonderful said,
February 2, 2007 at 20:24
“Our politics then were grimmer yet had a lighter touch. The Soviets could nuke us tomorrow; let’s have a hellacious brawl. It was a serious time, but I don’t think we were in general so somber, so locked in.”
Reagan: Man of Seriousness. Reagan, a man so serious, he transcended the petty differences between the movies he’d seen and actual events, yes, Reagan, the Serious Man’s Serious Man, who sincerely–and, as who will deny, seriously–felt that no one did anything wrong in Iran Contra.
Reagan–the Man Who Took Grenada.
And now? Now we’re “locked in.” Alas, we’re locked in this closet with a megalomaniac president and a vice-president who literally couldn’t care less about democracy, law, or the truth. How did we get here? How did things in general get so somber? No one can say.
What? Someone can say? I promoted these criminals and still apologize for them? So no wonder I pine for the crinkly-eyed idiocy of Reagan?
Oh.
g said,
February 2, 2007 at 20:45
Or more like being George Bush. Because always Mom liked Jeb the best.
Tim said,
February 2, 2007 at 21:13
Mr. Castro, shave off that beard !
norbizness said,
February 2, 2007 at 21:15
I’ll never Peggy right before the Xanax overdose: she waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God and ride a magic talking dolphin.
Randy said,
February 2, 2007 at 21:21
Boy, the thought of once again sitting in Ted’s in San Anslemo, throwing back a few Anchor Steams. Thanks for the memories on this -2 degree day in Madison Wisconsin.
Perpetual Half-Mast said,
February 2, 2007 at 21:30
Bad Union, Bad Union
http://www.emailforeclosures.com/searchresults.cgi
His Grace said,
February 2, 2007 at 22:46
I’m surprised that the right hasn’t nominated Reagan for sainthood.
Next from Dan Riehl: I never said Regan was a saint, I said he was nominated for Sainthood, and yes you could argue the chances of that happening could be 0, but you could never say that He wasn’t nominated.
Matt T. said,
February 2, 2007 at 22:49
And “Ketchup? Yeah, that’s a vegetable.”
Everytime one of the wingnuts demands we all take life-lessons and foreing policy ideas from shit like “24″ or how life was just like “Ozzie & Harriet” before the darned ol’ Negroes got so uppity, I’m a bit shocked…until I remember they worship a bonified Hollywood actor. Then I get confused trying to figure out why they hate Hollywood so much if it produced Saint Ronnie.
Wingnuts. Who can figger ‘em.
DBK said,
February 2, 2007 at 22:52
Sweet Freepin’ Jesus that Noonan is a nutter. I can’t believe she’s giving a 96 year old dead man a printed blowjob, and a nasty piece of shit like Reagan at that, a man who lied with complete conviction even though he knew he was lying, an asshole who declared that if there was to be violence against anti-Viet Nam War protesters, he wanted it to start right then in his state, a criminal who knew damned well the crimes he was committing in Iran-Contra, a shitty little elitist who railed against phoney “welfare queens”, a lying liar who tripled the national debt with his economic policies that simply increased the number of people living below the poverty line.
I guess you could say I don’t share Noonan’s crush on the Greatest President Ever to Have Altzheimer’s Disease…Out of the Past Four Presidents, That Is.
Noonan needs to dig Reagans mouldering meat up and get a room with it.
RubDMC said,
February 2, 2007 at 23:02
Peggy needs a new string of pearls.
C’mon over here, my lil’ Pegeen. Ronnie’s dead.
Flying Rodent said,
February 2, 2007 at 23:05
My only visit to America coincided with Reagan’s funeral, and let me tell you, it was a fucking brutal experience.
The European Championships were on at the same time, so I thought I’d be in for two weeks of drunken hooliganism and raging parties to send the old fraud off, but not a bit of it.
If anything, people seemed quite sad. What a disappointment, I just had to soldier on with a one man riot instead.
And to think, sniffy Europeans think the Americans are vulgar. They wouldn’t say that if they could’ve seen me pissing off the side of the catamaran while singing football songs in the harbour in Boston.
a different brad said,
February 2, 2007 at 23:36
I was a kid during the Reagan years. One of my first political memories is as a 6 or so year old, watching Reagan testify in about Iran-Contra, and turning to my mother and asking, “mom, why is the president lying?”
If there’s one thing I can say George Bush has accomplished, it’s answering a question I long wondered over regarding Reagan. Was Ronnie the most incompetent president ever, or the most corrupt? The answer, of course, is sadly, neither.
I have fond memories of the day Reagan died, tho. Saw the Violent Femmes in concert, n they played Old Mother Reagan.
Snigger if you want at mention of the Femmes, but like They Might Be Giants and the B-52s I loved em too much in that 12-14 age range to ever turn on em now.
Cutler John said,
February 2, 2007 at 23:55
The question, His Grace, is whether Reagan’s family should even accept his sainthood if he is so chosen by the Pope.
I will always remember being a 12 year old during the second (?) Mondale-Reagan debate, when Reagan had AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING BLACKOUT/ SENILITY ATTACK right in the middle of a question, and the next morning the media just kind of said “Ha, ha, yeah, he’s a little old, but no worries.” It was right around then that I decided this country was, at bottom, insane.
That belief has served me quite well the last few years.
Cutler John said,
February 3, 2007 at 0:07
Sorry, first debate. And Reagan had his scripted line about youth and inexperience all cue-carded up for the second debate, and everyone laughed and said “That takes care of the age issue.”
Meanwhile, in Iran and Nicaragua…
a different brad said,
February 3, 2007 at 1:55
Oops, wait, I wasn’t six. Closer to nine or ten. Forgot the relevant dates.
Candy said,
February 3, 2007 at 1:56
When the right wing was screeching about Bill Clinton’s corrupt appointees, I used to go, jeez, don’t any of you people remember Ann Gorsuch-Burford and James Watt? What about Iran Contra? These people are so selectively amnesiac, it’s like they’re trying to emulate Rotten Ronny Raygun’s senility. Amazing.
The whole fuckin’ eighties was about corruption of one kind or another, and it largely stemmed from the example set by the Reagan White House and its Wall Street buddies.
Teh said,
February 3, 2007 at 2:08
Hmmm…..maybe Peggy can tell us if a dead man’s cock is harder to suck then a live one. Given that’s she’s had both I mean.
Has anyone checked Regan’s mausoleum? Any pry marks on the casket? Because if there is I think we might have a suspect.
teh l4m3 said,
February 3, 2007 at 3:32
For the record, that was not meh.
Flying Rodent said,
February 3, 2007 at 4:46
Methinks teh l4m3 doth protest too much.
Personally, I stopped posting comments about presidential cocksucking many moons ago, since the last thing I need is the head of state’s penis thrust down my throat.
I deplore this relentless innuendo.
BrooklynRaider said,
February 3, 2007 at 7:38
Still, Flying Rodent. The whole point is none of it can withstand the power of the Clenis. Sure, Reagan was a mighty man, a well-endowed man, a Babe the Blue Ox of Conservative Manhood Man.
And yet still they’re stuck in the shadow of the Clenis, which overcasts them all.
And don’t you long for the days when that was the only thing our president was thrusting down anyone’s throat?
teh l4m3 said,
February 3, 2007 at 7:41
I always pictured the Clenis as being slightly curved to the right, and tending downwards when tumescent. Not impressed, overall. But Clinton was a decent president…
Bush, on the other hand, I imagine as having a mighty tiny package…
whack said,
February 3, 2007 at 18:49
I’ll take a “happy birthday” from Marilyn Monroe over one from Piggy Noonan any day, and JFK over Raygun as well.
Hattie said,
February 5, 2007 at 18:58
Reagan’s secret was that he told mediocre people that they could be proud of themselves.
BD said,
February 6, 2007 at 0:43
Check out the Reagan mug…and the Bush mug…and the Wal-Mart ass-kissing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RZUIoLfZpw