Republicans, shower me with praise of Reagan.

[wasteofo2]

I have a real liberal intelectual wannabe history teacher, and he wants us to write an essay on our favorite President, so I decided why not write about Ronald Reagan?

So, besides his charm, moral clarity/character, and single-handedly winning the cold war totally on his own without anything else effecting it besides his resolute single-mindedness, what awesomness do you guys see in Ronald Reagan?

[phatmonky]

As I have urged you to read before, his handling of the Flight controller strike was fantastic.
I have a busy night and must go, but I will be happy to add more tomorrow.

[russ_watters]

Look into his dealings with the USSR - look at "Mr. Gorbechev (sp?), tear down that wall!" but look deeper too: the two of them were actually friends!

[selfAdjoint]

I think that sly "We start bombing on Wednesday" open mike remark was classic. You think that wasn't deliberate? It did just what he wanted, make the hawks in the Kremlin think he was a wild cowboy so they would crank up the defense budget, till it broke the USSR economy. "Evil Empire" was another good line in this direction.

[BobG]

As I have urged you to read before, his handling of the Flight controller strike was fantastic.
I have a busy night and must go, but I will be happy to add more tomorrow.

Whatever happened to those fired guys, anyway?

I found out when NOAA took over control of DMSP satellites in preparation for the day they launch a bigger NPOESS satellite that can meet both program's needs. Turns out those air traffic controllers have a pretty good networking system and, over the course of 10+ years, the overwhelming majority of NOAA satellite controllers began to consist of ex-air traffic controllers.

Needing a rapid influx of DMSP expertise, they hired just about anyone who could spell DMSP (harder than you think - Di-Methyl Sulfide Phosphates :uhh: Doh! Wrong DMSP - maybe it's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) One of the first DMSP guys to leave the Air Force and join NOAA thought asking one of the older veterans about his opinion of Reagan would be a good way to strike up a conversation. Not only did he have a few unprintable adjectives to describe Reagan, but he could recall the exact year, month, day, and time that Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers. He decided not to bring up that subject at work, ever again. :rofl:

[BobG]

My favorite Reagan memory was the New Hampshire debate.

The little known fact is that Reagan 'wanted' a one-on-one debate between Bush and himself without the other miscellaneous Republican candidates - a debate format Bush eagerly accepted. To do so without violating campaign funding rules, Reagan picked up the tab for the debate himself. At the last minute, Reagan invited the other Republican candidates, setting up his famous scene ("I paid for this microphone ....") and making Bush seem childish and petty for opposing the inclusion of the minor Republicans.

Set and spike, Reagan.