Nancy Reagan (1921 - 2016)
March 6, 2016 9:45 AM Subscribe
Nancy Reagan has died at age 94.
From the New York Times obituary:
Here she is on 60 Minutes in 2002, talking about living with a husband who has Alzheimer's disease.
The New York Times notes that Nancy helped Ronald write his poignant statement to the public about Alzheimer's:
From the New York Times obituary:
Mrs. Reagan was a fierce guardian of her husband’s image, sometimes at the expense of her own, and during Mr. Reagan’s improbable climb from a Hollywood acting career to the governorship of California and ultimately the White House, she was a trusted adviser.Nancy once let it show that she was feeding lines to Ronald.
“Without Nancy, there would have been no Governor Reagan, no President Reagan,” said Michael K. Deaver, the longtime aide and close friend of the Reagans who died in 2007.
Here she is on 60 Minutes in 2002, talking about living with a husband who has Alzheimer's disease.
The New York Times notes that Nancy helped Ronald write his poignant statement to the public about Alzheimer's:
I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease. . . .
At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life's journey with my beloved Nancy and my family. I plan to enjoy the great outdoors and stay in touch with my friends and supporters.
Unfortunately, as Alzheimer's disease progresses, the family often bears a heavy burden. I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience. . . .
I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
I'm sorry for the loss to her family, but on the other hand: maybe now we can stop the ridiculous name/rename-everything-after-Reagan campaign she waged. (I'm lookin' at you especially, National Airport outside DC....)
posted by easily confused at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [30 favorites]
posted by easily confused at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [30 favorites]
Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson’s Plea For Help Nine Weeks Before He Died
cmd-F "AIDS" in the NYT and WaPo obits: Result not found.
And the destruction wrought by Just Say No cannot be ignored or underestimated.
posted by rtha at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [190 favorites]
cmd-F "AIDS" in the NYT and WaPo obits: Result not found.
And the destruction wrought by Just Say No cannot be ignored or underestimated.
posted by rtha at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [190 favorites]
.
posted by offalark at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by offalark at 9:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm sure everyone will choose to remember her in their own way, but as a child of the 1980s to me she will always be the public face of the "DARE" program that was intended to scare kids out of using drugs...and which symbolizes the larger phenomenon of the "war on drugs" which has been one of the most damaging and terrible (and enforced through racism) policies the USA has ever undertaken.
posted by trackofalljades at 9:53 AM on March 6, 2016 [109 favorites]
posted by trackofalljades at 9:53 AM on March 6, 2016 [109 favorites]
i don't know why she didn't "just say no" to death.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:56 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 9:56 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
They say only the good die young.
I'm sure her family is sad because someone they loved is dead. She made life hell for many of my friends and was indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. No moment of silence from me.
posted by tzikeh at 9:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [38 favorites]
I'm sure her family is sad because someone they loved is dead. She made life hell for many of my friends and was indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. No moment of silence from me.
posted by tzikeh at 9:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [38 favorites]
> Obligatory.
Her face says, "Are we done yet?"
His face says, "It's a living."
posted by ardgedee at 9:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Her face says, "Are we done yet?"
His face says, "It's a living."
posted by ardgedee at 9:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
I'm lookin' at you especially, National Airport outside DC....
Based on the check-ins on my Facebook wall, I can only assume you're referring to the Monica Lewinsky National Airport.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Based on the check-ins on my Facebook wall, I can only assume you're referring to the Monica Lewinsky National Airport.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Came for Mr. T, was not disappointed.
Just say .
posted by chavenet at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Just say .
posted by chavenet at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mr. T actually looks as if he has just attained nibbana.
posted by selfnoise at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Trimmed super-long quote in OP; 8 paragraphs is far too much to lift from a single article.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 9:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 9:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
I wish Queen Nancy had treated the rest of the country with the compassion and love she showed Ronnie (and Rex).
posted by sallybrown at 10:05 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 10:05 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
In the 80s a friend's go-to line was Just say "yo" to drugs!
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:05 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:05 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
You were friends with Randee of the Redwoods?
posted by jonmc at 10:06 AM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 10:06 AM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
This close to such a historic election, I think it's fair to demand the American people have a say in Mrs. Reagan's eventual replacement.
posted by nobody at 10:06 AM on March 6, 2016 [28 favorites]
posted by nobody at 10:06 AM on March 6, 2016 [28 favorites]
I'm not happy she's dead, but I'm not going to cry about it, either.
posted by Automocar at 10:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 10:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Surprised that no one's mentioned her astrologer.
posted by Catblack at 10:10 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by Catblack at 10:10 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
she goes to her luxuriously prepared tomb in the Reagan pyramid in OC to serve at His side. To be joined shortly by their loyal manservant George H. W. Bush.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by ennui.bz at 10:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
She was the ultimate '80's den mother: glamorous career with a powerful husband. She was superstitious, did not live the average life, yet told kids to Just Say No. She is an '80's icon no matter how you see her, and I always found her to be a very unintentionally eccentric character.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 10:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 10:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Holy crow I had no idea about Randee of the Redwoods!
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:12 AM on March 6, 2016
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:12 AM on March 6, 2016
Mod note: Metacommentary on how MetaFilter handles obit threads belongs in MetaTalk.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
I'm here to educate about Our Precious Heritage.
posted by jonmc at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
.
When I'm not quite sure how to process something I think it's appropriate to begin with respect for the passing of a life. .
posted by meinvt at 10:14 AM on March 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
When I'm not quite sure how to process something I think it's appropriate to begin with respect for the passing of a life. .
posted by meinvt at 10:14 AM on March 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
And the destruction wrought by Just Say No cannot be ignored or underestimated.
in her defense, she did confirm for all time the very real dangers of marijuana addiction, and its principal side effect: communism.
posted by philip-random at 10:16 AM on March 6, 2016 [27 favorites]
in her defense, she did confirm for all time the very real dangers of marijuana addiction, and its principal side effect: communism.
posted by philip-random at 10:16 AM on March 6, 2016 [27 favorites]
I hope, at some point before she died, that she learned to feel compassion.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:20 AM on March 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:20 AM on March 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
The world feels a little brighter, a little clearer.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:25 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:25 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:28 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:28 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is how I will always remember Nancy.
posted by dfm500 at 10:29 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by dfm500 at 10:29 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
You know.... Yes, in hindsight... The "just say no" campaign was terribly harmful but she was the First Lady and a very public figure. I do not believe that she meant any harm to the millions of school children who got the message of that campaign. When you know better, you do better. She gets a moment of silence from me and I wish her family peace at this time of her passing.
.
posted by pearlybob at 10:30 AM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
.
posted by pearlybob at 10:30 AM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
Nancy Reagan was a symptom of so much that was wrong with the American sociopolitical landscape. When I look at the life she led, I see behind the scenes engineering by someone who had never been elected nor hired nor trained for the work she was doing -- which means she could neither be compensated nor held responsible for anything she did. I see an image-managed, blow-dried archetype of a supportive, blindly loyal wife who sacrificed all her own ambitions to help her husband realize his. I see that she was responsible for reactionary political initiatives that backfired horribly. I don't think Nancy Reagan was evil, and I've certainly heard some praiseworthy things about her. When John McCain ditched his disabled first wife Carol, who had waited for him through all his war prisoner years in Vietnam, for a younger, prettier, richer woman, both the Reagans, but especially Nancy, lost all respect for him (the McCains and the Reagans had been close friends), and Nancy gave Carol McCain a job at the White House. Nancy was someone who perhaps genuinely meant well but who wasn't qualified to do the work she took on and who very often lost sight of the larger principles and objectives involved. She often wound up doing more harm than good, and she lived in a time and in circumstances that offered no checks and balances to her misguided zeal.
In obit threads, my thoughts often include a phrase to the effect that the person departed was one of kind whose like will not be seen again. I hope that is true in Nancy Reagan's case. She was a relic of a time that is gone, and we need to make sure that time stays gone.
posted by orange swan at 10:32 AM on March 6, 2016 [152 favorites]
In obit threads, my thoughts often include a phrase to the effect that the person departed was one of kind whose like will not be seen again. I hope that is true in Nancy Reagan's case. She was a relic of a time that is gone, and we need to make sure that time stays gone.
posted by orange swan at 10:32 AM on March 6, 2016 [152 favorites]
And the destruction wrought by Just Say No cannot be ignored or underestimated.Given this can't be underestimated, do you have any sources that try not to?
I was born the year her husband took office and thus a prime target of Just Say No and DARE as they developed. I can imagine inefficacy and even a slight negative correlation to preventing alcohol abuse by teens (anecdotal), but I'm curious about the larger destructive effects.
posted by wilted at 10:36 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
.
posted by kimberussell at 10:36 AM on March 6, 2016
posted by kimberussell at 10:36 AM on March 6, 2016
The Raygun era initiated or expedited all the features I find the worst about America, which has culminated in the fascist, vulgar talking-yam Trump. I also thought the family's later work on behalf of Alzheimer's research was typical of conservatives - only interested in making progress when something affects them personally.
And she herself was no guiding light on the topic of recreational drugs, and certainly could have done more to help the gay community. Perhaps if the two show-biz Reagans, with a son who'd worked in the dance world, had been more proactive in that regard there would've been a slightly less bigoted atmosphere around me as a young adult. You know, like maybe no morning radio guys JOKING about Rock Hudson's sexual orientation the day after he died.
So, shall I show more respect to her than those assholes did toward Mr. Hudson? Well, still my first thought this morning was that someone had lost their mother. So my sympathy to them.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:43 AM on March 6, 2016 [24 favorites]
And she herself was no guiding light on the topic of recreational drugs, and certainly could have done more to help the gay community. Perhaps if the two show-biz Reagans, with a son who'd worked in the dance world, had been more proactive in that regard there would've been a slightly less bigoted atmosphere around me as a young adult. You know, like maybe no morning radio guys JOKING about Rock Hudson's sexual orientation the day after he died.
So, shall I show more respect to her than those assholes did toward Mr. Hudson? Well, still my first thought this morning was that someone had lost their mother. So my sympathy to them.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:43 AM on March 6, 2016 [24 favorites]
All my memories of the Reagans are negative and I think they did a lot of damage to the country. But they were popular and mostly well liked, and that image seems to have been improving even more in recent years.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:46 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Dip Flash at 10:46 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Bless her heart.
posted by fizzix at 10:51 AM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by fizzix at 10:51 AM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
I voted against Reagan in my first election. His patriotism was jingoistic, and I hated how he eroded the safety net for so many and sowed distrust of government.
Nevertheless, I have softened on him and his wife over the last 27 years. He was an optimist, and he truly loved the USA, even his policies and perspectives often were so terribly misguided. And he and his wife truly loved each other. So, whatever her flaws, she gets my respect for that and for enduring her husband's disease.
.
posted by haiku warrior at 10:53 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Nevertheless, I have softened on him and his wife over the last 27 years. He was an optimist, and he truly loved the USA, even his policies and perspectives often were so terribly misguided. And he and his wife truly loved each other. So, whatever her flaws, she gets my respect for that and for enduring her husband's disease.
.
posted by haiku warrior at 10:53 AM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
No word on whether her astrologer forsaw the death.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:54 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 10:54 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
After calming my spastic Reaganopathy, and reading the wiki article, it occurs to me she was a very strong woman at a time and place when it maybe took even more courage and resolve to be one. So props to that. Plus they must have loved each other a lot, and who's to argue with that. So
.
I am reminded of a final Reagan-era Doonesbury strip where they strike the White House "set" and sweep the stage clean. The narrator asks, "What, no parting shot?" And the sweeper says, "Nope. Ex-Presidents get safe passage out of town." So today I'll stand down.
But just today.
posted by petebest at 10:55 AM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
.
I am reminded of a final Reagan-era Doonesbury strip where they strike the White House "set" and sweep the stage clean. The narrator asks, "What, no parting shot?" And the sweeper says, "Nope. Ex-Presidents get safe passage out of town." So today I'll stand down.
But just today.
posted by petebest at 10:55 AM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
Least dots ever?
posted by rikschell at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
A lot of my friends are dead because of the Reagans.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [57 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [57 favorites]
Least dots ever?
A lot of friends, relatives and loved ones died who shouldn't have. Their blood at least stained her hands.
posted by Talez at 10:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [22 favorites]
A lot of friends, relatives and loved ones died who shouldn't have. Their blood at least stained her hands.
posted by Talez at 10:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [22 favorites]
It seems that most of the worst trends in America started under the Reagans. The rise in college tuitions, the fall in union membership and the shrinking of the middle class. The rise in income inequality. Their presidency marked the end of Roosevelt's New Deal. It's not the violent hatred I felt when Maggie Thatcher died but it doesn't bring back fond memories.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:02 AM on March 6, 2016 [43 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:02 AM on March 6, 2016 [43 favorites]
It seems that most of the worst trends in America started under the Reagans. The rise in college tuitions, the fall in union membership and the shrinking of the middle class. The rise in income inequality. Their presidency marked the end of Roosevelt's New Deal. It's not the violent hatred I felt when Maggie Thatcher died but it doesn't bring back fond memories.
This is not a coincidence. Reagan specifically took decades of middle class first policy and turned it on its head enabling the systematic looting of the country by the wealthy elite. Consumerism only kept up because of the simultaneous decrease in prices of consumer goods by slave-like manufacturing in China while expansion of consumer credit has kept stretching growth in consumption.
posted by Talez at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [43 favorites]
This is not a coincidence. Reagan specifically took decades of middle class first policy and turned it on its head enabling the systematic looting of the country by the wealthy elite. Consumerism only kept up because of the simultaneous decrease in prices of consumer goods by slave-like manufacturing in China while expansion of consumer credit has kept stretching growth in consumption.
posted by Talez at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [43 favorites]
The Reagan Administration was probably the most destabilizing force outside of dictatorships that the 20th century ever saw, both at home and abroad. Almost every serious problem we're facing today was made exponentially worse on their watch, and Nancy was complicit in a lot of it.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [40 favorites]
posted by zombieflanders at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [40 favorites]
And to make matters worse, that policy was upended by racist jingoism. It was an appeal to the worst in people and they took it hook, line, and sinker.
posted by Talez at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Talez at 11:07 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
I hope I'm not remembered for the worst of what I've done. I'd like to be remembered for my intentions, but sometimes good intentions just don't cover the ground.
If an eternal afterlife truly exists, maybe we'll serve our time there in perfect understanding of the mortal phase of our existence. I can stand between the Bush's and the Reagans and not feel too bad about my time here.
Nancy: just say "Oh, no!"
posted by mule98J at 11:08 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
If an eternal afterlife truly exists, maybe we'll serve our time there in perfect understanding of the mortal phase of our existence. I can stand between the Bush's and the Reagans and not feel too bad about my time here.
Nancy: just say "Oh, no!"
posted by mule98J at 11:08 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have to admit, I am a little surprised to discover she wasn't already dead.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:09 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:09 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
She'll come to regret sentencing all those gays to their deaths when she tries to get a seat on heaven's decorating committee.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 11:11 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
When you look at the numbers of the 1980s, this chart:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=3HIT
stands out to me. It is the annual (YOY) growth of real debt per capita -- the 1980s good times were floated on a sea of new debt. This is partially because the Volcker Fed had fought borrowing quite severely 1979-82, trying to beat back the ongoing price-wage-debt inflation in Ronnie's first term, no matter the cost to the actual economy, which was great. But the median boomers were turning 30 in 1985, and they needed to borrow. So borrow they did!
This is also visible in a simpler graph:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=33gh
all debt (less financial sector) to GDP. *That* is the story of the 80s, and 00s too.
We're stuck in ZIRP forever now, just like the Japanese.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:12 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=3HIT
stands out to me. It is the annual (YOY) growth of real debt per capita -- the 1980s good times were floated on a sea of new debt. This is partially because the Volcker Fed had fought borrowing quite severely 1979-82, trying to beat back the ongoing price-wage-debt inflation in Ronnie's first term, no matter the cost to the actual economy, which was great. But the median boomers were turning 30 in 1985, and they needed to borrow. So borrow they did!
This is also visible in a simpler graph:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=33gh
all debt (less financial sector) to GDP. *That* is the story of the 80s, and 00s too.
We're stuck in ZIRP forever now, just like the Japanese.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:12 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
my first thought this morning was that someone had lost their mother. So my sympathy to them
After I wrote that, I googled to see what "the kids" have been up to. Read that Ron's wife died in '14, too. I also found he's been voting Dem since at least 04, and is a spokesperson for an atheist organization! So, assuming Patti is also still left-leaning, both their kids turned out more liberal than the parents.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:16 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
After I wrote that, I googled to see what "the kids" have been up to. Read that Ron's wife died in '14, too. I also found he's been voting Dem since at least 04, and is a spokesperson for an atheist organization! So, assuming Patti is also still left-leaning, both their kids turned out more liberal than the parents.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:16 AM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
♋
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:23 AM on March 6, 2016
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:23 AM on March 6, 2016
I said no to drugs, but they wouldn't listen.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:28 AM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:28 AM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
*fewest
posted by Evilspork at 11:29 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Evilspork at 11:29 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Absolutely no love lost. I hadn't even thought about Nancy in years and I'm surprised she was alive at all.
The Reagans and their jingoistic supporters, and most of their peers and generational cohort have left one hell of a mess behind.
And worse, without really any understanding at all about why their children and the younger generations are not only angry about it, but why they've been left in a drastically dis-advantaged place, with a less safe, less free and much more financially/fiscally abusive world to try to do it in.
(Sorry, younger Millennial folks. Yes, you're getting totally fucked, and you should be really angry about it.)
posted by loquacious at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2016 [17 favorites]
The Reagans and their jingoistic supporters, and most of their peers and generational cohort have left one hell of a mess behind.
And worse, without really any understanding at all about why their children and the younger generations are not only angry about it, but why they've been left in a drastically dis-advantaged place, with a less safe, less free and much more financially/fiscally abusive world to try to do it in.
(Sorry, younger Millennial folks. Yes, you're getting totally fucked, and you should be really angry about it.)
posted by loquacious at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2016 [17 favorites]
I also said no to drugs. But why was I having a conversation with them in the first place?
posted by lmfsilva at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by lmfsilva at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
As former first lady Nancy Reagan stood by and watched Thursday evening, the Police Department's SWAT team carried out a drug raid at a small, heavily protected house near Main and 51st streets in South-Central Los Angeles.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:38 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:38 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Seriously, what's the obit thread with the least dots? I remember Maggie Thatcher's was contentious but still had dots. Personally I think Nancy Reagan was a horrible person too.
posted by rikschell at 11:43 AM on March 6, 2016
posted by rikschell at 11:43 AM on March 6, 2016
Not sure if "least dots" is as statistically significant as "ratio of dots (alone or within a comment) to total comments." There aren't a whole lot of comments here to start with....*
(*not dots)
posted by tzikeh at 11:47 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
(*not dots)
posted by tzikeh at 11:47 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Sometimes we miss the things that go away.
Sometimes... not so much.
posted by Mooski at 11:49 AM on March 6, 2016
Sometimes... not so much.
posted by Mooski at 11:49 AM on March 6, 2016
I do not believe that she meant any harm
If you've got all of the best intentions in the world and two bucks, you're short for a coffee.
posted by mhoye at 11:50 AM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
If you've got all of the best intentions in the world and two bucks, you're short for a coffee.
posted by mhoye at 11:50 AM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
Not so much a horrible person, but just a Republican, ya know?
I'd only be half-surprised if They Live turned out to be documentary.
It was only when the GOP achieved its elusive return to controlling all four branches of the government 2001-2006 that I realized how horrible they were in the collective sense.
The late Nancy Reagan is just a small dot in this larger picture.
So . for that I guess.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'd only be half-surprised if They Live turned out to be documentary.
It was only when the GOP achieved its elusive return to controlling all four branches of the government 2001-2006 that I realized how horrible they were in the collective sense.
The late Nancy Reagan is just a small dot in this larger picture.
So . for that I guess.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
, did not live the average life, yet told kids to Just Say No
I don't see a connection. In any event, is that any less silly than Michelle Obama's Let's Move! routine?
It's what first ladies do- try to persuade the youth to keep their foolishness to a minimum.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
I don't see a connection. In any event, is that any less silly than Michelle Obama's Let's Move! routine?
It's what first ladies do- try to persuade the youth to keep their foolishness to a minimum.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
Yeah best intentions are overabundant and overvalued. Pretty sure even the worst people in history had great intentions. Nancy Reagan and her legacy's "best intentions" are cold comfort to the lives they destroyed.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Not so much a horrible person, but just a Republican, ya know?
Hudson, in the American Hospital and unable to see the only doctor the people around him believed could help the actor, took a call from President Reagan — who had never publicly addressed the AIDS crisis.
Of the call, Shilts reported, a White House spokesperson said at the time, “President Reagan wished him well and let him know that he and Mrs. Reagan were keeping him in their thoughts and prayers.”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:54 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
Hudson, in the American Hospital and unable to see the only doctor the people around him believed could help the actor, took a call from President Reagan — who had never publicly addressed the AIDS crisis.
Of the call, Shilts reported, a White House spokesperson said at the time, “President Reagan wished him well and let him know that he and Mrs. Reagan were keeping him in their thoughts and prayers.”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:54 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
I won't do the same wiggle and happy dance I did when Madame Thatcher met her just rewards, but I won't mourn her passing. Instead of a dot for her, and her Machiavelli like creation of saint Ronnie, I leave a dot for the thousands she help imprison, the thousands of people who died feeling shame because of Reagan policies, the millions of a generation who will never understand how we pivoted from a nation of science and intellectualism to a nation of fear and constant war at the expense of the middle and lower classes. Nancy Reagan embodies everything brittle and cold and heartless and horrible that the 80s wrought upon our culture unconscious.
So, no dot from me for her. Dot for the America she midwifed.
.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:56 AM on March 6, 2016 [31 favorites]
So, no dot from me for her. Dot for the America she midwifed.
.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:56 AM on March 6, 2016 [31 favorites]
I see a shining sepulture
down by the sea.
That is all •
posted by clavdivs at 11:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
down by the sea.
That is all •
posted by clavdivs at 11:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
In any event, is that any less silly than Michelle Obama's Let's Move! routine?
Yes, because one is a lie.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [35 favorites]
Yes, because one is a lie.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:57 AM on March 6, 2016 [35 favorites]
I smoke this joint in remembrance of you and your sorry ass drug war.
posted by hangingbyathread at 11:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by hangingbyathread at 11:58 AM on March 6, 2016 [18 favorites]
In any event, is that any less silly than Michelle Obama's Let's Move! routine?
People aren't getting 10 years in prison for being couch potatoes.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [73 favorites]
People aren't getting 10 years in prison for being couch potatoes.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [73 favorites]
I am not and have never been a fan of the Reagans, but it's always been obvious to me that Nancy Reagan struggled with disordered eating, if not a full-blown eating disorder, for much of her life. There were always rumors about her cutting her food into hundreds of pieces and chewing each piece forty times and so on. I know someone who sat next to her at a dinner during the Reagan presidency and confirmed that she did very little eating. As the sister of a woman who lived with anorexia for many years and suffered intense physical and mental pain from it, I couldn't wish that hell on anyone.
posted by swerve at 11:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by swerve at 11:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
Yeah, I don't have anything nice to say about her. Some comic once described her as a life-size PEZ dispenser, and that stuck with me so hard. Giant head, tiny body... Just want to tilt that head back really far....
All that aside, my brain has chosen a specific Wizard Of Oz track over a specific Elvis Costello track to commemorate the occasion. It's a more bouncy song anyway.
posted by hippybear at 12:01 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
All that aside, my brain has chosen a specific Wizard Of Oz track over a specific Elvis Costello track to commemorate the occasion. It's a more bouncy song anyway.
posted by hippybear at 12:01 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Control-f "abortion". No results.
Okay, I'm not going to diminish any of the attacks on her I see in this thread; I agree with them all. But I might as well try to say something good about her; she ensured the Reagan did not pursue a pro-life agenda.
She was pro-choice. Yes, she was in the closet about it until she was no longer in the White House, but she had Ronny's ear on the subject. Given the religious right had essentially elected Ronny, if she had been an outspoken opponent of a woman's right to choose, she could have done untold damage in eight years in the White House.
Okay, I'm not going to diminish any of the attacks on her I see in this thread; I agree with them all. But I might as well try to say something good about her; she ensured the Reagan did not pursue a pro-life agenda.
She was pro-choice. Yes, she was in the closet about it until she was no longer in the White House, but she had Ronny's ear on the subject. Given the religious right had essentially elected Ronny, if she had been an outspoken opponent of a woman's right to choose, she could have done untold damage in eight years in the White House.
"I'm against abortion," she said in response to a question from instructor Carl Sferrazza Anthony, who is teaching a class titled "The President's Spouse." "On the other hand, I believe in a woman's choice."posted by el io at 12:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [33 favorites]
No dot from me.
I turned 13 in 1980, and spent the next 8 years terrified. I assumed I'd be dead soon in nuclear fire. Once AIDS took off that added to the fear level. Watching my college aid get cut was just icing on the bleak cake. Watching the war on drugs police state rise up prepared me nicely for dystopian fiction and cyberpunk.
Now, years later, when I look at how inequality took off starting around 1980, and can see the war against the New Deal make its first gains starting then (ht to Bee'sWing), not to mention the anti-intellectualism and jingoism others have noted, now I realize what a pivotal time that was. And how America pivoted in the wrong direction.
Most of that is on Ronald Reagan, but some on Nancy, so yeah, a dot-free obit comment from me.
posted by doctornemo at 12:09 PM on March 6, 2016 [25 favorites]
I turned 13 in 1980, and spent the next 8 years terrified. I assumed I'd be dead soon in nuclear fire. Once AIDS took off that added to the fear level. Watching my college aid get cut was just icing on the bleak cake. Watching the war on drugs police state rise up prepared me nicely for dystopian fiction and cyberpunk.
Now, years later, when I look at how inequality took off starting around 1980, and can see the war against the New Deal make its first gains starting then (ht to Bee'sWing), not to mention the anti-intellectualism and jingoism others have noted, now I realize what a pivotal time that was. And how America pivoted in the wrong direction.
Most of that is on Ronald Reagan, but some on Nancy, so yeah, a dot-free obit comment from me.
posted by doctornemo at 12:09 PM on March 6, 2016 [25 favorites]
I'm lookin' at you especially, National Airport outside DC
That's what you get when you fire 11,000 air traffic controllers.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:09 PM on March 6, 2016 [19 favorites]
Least Dots Ever?
Well, she's no "I'll piss on your grave" Margaret Thatcher, but she was involved and invested in some very not-good things, and I for one, shant miss her.
As I said over in the latest of the election year threads; for her position as public figurehead of the "Just Say No" ad campaign at the forefront of the disastrous and destructive "War on Drugs", I would like it if everyone (in their own way, of course, I would not presume to make lifestyle choices for anyone) to observe a moment of silence for her (and her victims) at 4:20 today. It seems only fair.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Well, she's no "I'll piss on your grave" Margaret Thatcher, but she was involved and invested in some very not-good things, and I for one, shant miss her.
As I said over in the latest of the election year threads; for her position as public figurehead of the "Just Say No" ad campaign at the forefront of the disastrous and destructive "War on Drugs", I would like it if everyone (in their own way, of course, I would not presume to make lifestyle choices for anyone) to observe a moment of silence for her (and her victims) at 4:20 today. It seems only fair.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Not so much a horrible person, but just a Republican, ya know?
So was Betty Ford [NYT; Rick Perlstein], the previous GOP First Lady, but in terms of what they did and what they stood for, they could hardly be more different.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [22 favorites]
So was Betty Ford [NYT; Rick Perlstein], the previous GOP First Lady, but in terms of what they did and what they stood for, they could hardly be more different.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [22 favorites]
Her and Ronnie always looked like shrunken apple head people to me. I like the pez dispenser too!
posted by futz at 12:19 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by futz at 12:19 PM on March 6, 2016
I've always felt Ronnie was an empty suit. A genial (and racist and homophobic) spokesmodel for the Republican party. So I could never work up the level of hate I felt for Maggie Thatcher. From what I've read, that's what Maggie thought of him too.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Her and Ronnie always looked like shrunken apple head people to me
You weren't the only one who saw the Reagans as shrunken apple head people.
posted by orange swan at 12:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
You weren't the only one who saw the Reagans as shrunken apple head people.
posted by orange swan at 12:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've always felt Ronnie was an empty suit. A genial (and racist and homophobic) spokesmodel for the Republican party.
Those two sentences together don't make sense to me.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:24 PM on March 6, 2016
Those two sentences together don't make sense to me.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:24 PM on March 6, 2016
“Without Nancy, there would have been no Governor Reagan, no President Reagan,” said Michael K. Deaver, the longtime aide and close friend of the Reagans who died in 2007.
Then she died about 50 years too late for her death to have had a positive effect on the world. As it is, this is the death of someone's dear old mother and must be very sad for the family.
posted by pracowity at 12:27 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Then she died about 50 years too late for her death to have had a positive effect on the world. As it is, this is the death of someone's dear old mother and must be very sad for the family.
posted by pracowity at 12:27 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Neither Nancy nor her husband had any power to make people believe things that they didn't believe anyway. They were just the perfect photo-booth manifestations of our lousy zeitgeist. Nevertheless, no dot from me.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean I think he was good at meeting and greeting, good at public speaking but knew nothing about politics or diplomacy or policy.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, a lot of Americans have poor memories and see the kind old grandfatherly and forget the trail of bodies in Central and South America. This was a man who could say, "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 evidence tell me it is not." And people bought it - still buy it.
And the trail of dollars. Reagan said, "I have a great idea! Why don't we loot our economy and give the money to the 1%?" and 40% of Americans said, "Fuck yeah, because one day too I will be a millionaire!"
It's funny. Americans venerate Reagan, despite the fact he was a man who effected great evil, apparently because he completely hid it under a folksy outside - and later, a doddering one. And they seem to venerate Trump, who wishes to effect great evil, and they claim it's because he doesn't hide it at all.
I'm starting to think they just like the "great evil" part - that a lot of Americans are in fact actively hostile to foreigners and the poor and the weak and like someone who treats them badly.
(And yes, many of these people are self-hating poor people: it's pathetic, rather like Stockholm Syndrome.)
Oh, and Nancy was his wife, and she participated and encouraged him in his war crimes, and she too was a despicable person who lived a long life of great personal wealth and who never suffered the slightest consequences from participating in these terrible deeds.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:39 PM on March 6, 2016 [42 favorites]
And the trail of dollars. Reagan said, "I have a great idea! Why don't we loot our economy and give the money to the 1%?" and 40% of Americans said, "Fuck yeah, because one day too I will be a millionaire!"
It's funny. Americans venerate Reagan, despite the fact he was a man who effected great evil, apparently because he completely hid it under a folksy outside - and later, a doddering one. And they seem to venerate Trump, who wishes to effect great evil, and they claim it's because he doesn't hide it at all.
I'm starting to think they just like the "great evil" part - that a lot of Americans are in fact actively hostile to foreigners and the poor and the weak and like someone who treats them badly.
(And yes, many of these people are self-hating poor people: it's pathetic, rather like Stockholm Syndrome.)
Oh, and Nancy was his wife, and she participated and encouraged him in his war crimes, and she too was a despicable person who lived a long life of great personal wealth and who never suffered the slightest consequences from participating in these terrible deeds.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:39 PM on March 6, 2016 [42 favorites]
Roomthreeseventeen, Leon Bing writes in Do or Die about how she asked one of her subjects how he felt about Nancy and the crack house: "Good thing I wasn't around to see that shit.I woulda shot her in the face"
posted by brujita at 12:43 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by brujita at 12:43 PM on March 6, 2016
Second, he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When he was running for governor of California in 1966, Reagan assailed the Fair Housing Act, saying, "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so."
http://www.progressive.org/news/2004/06/763/nostalgia-reagan-distorts-his-policies-against-blacks
Does the ideology shape the person, or the person shape the ideology?
Now, I don't know how much -- if at all -- Mrs Reagan herself was invested in the conservative movement, but our conservative friends are certainly invested in the Reagan brand.
She might have been along for the ride. Kinda like her husband in that respect . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:44 PM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
http://www.progressive.org/news/2004/06/763/nostalgia-reagan-distorts-his-policies-against-blacks
Does the ideology shape the person, or the person shape the ideology?
Now, I don't know how much -- if at all -- Mrs Reagan herself was invested in the conservative movement, but our conservative friends are certainly invested in the Reagan brand.
She might have been along for the ride. Kinda like her husband in that respect . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:44 PM on March 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:47 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:47 PM on March 6, 2016
.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 12:49 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 12:49 PM on March 6, 2016
And so passes the country's first female president.
We could have done better.
posted by East14thTaco at 12:50 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
We could have done better.
posted by East14thTaco at 12:50 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
And so passes the country's first female president.
I had always assumed that the ex-head of the CIA Vice President was calling the shots (in particular in regards to arms-for-hostages, drug trafficing, and death squads in Central America).
posted by el io at 12:53 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I had always assumed that the ex-head of the CIA Vice President was calling the shots (in particular in regards to arms-for-hostages, drug trafficing, and death squads in Central America).
posted by el io at 12:53 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Elaine Woo's Los Angeles Times obituary is a fine, balanced, in-depth account of her life and influence on her husband and his White House.
[Sadly, Elaine and the entire obit staff at the LA Times were part of last year's downsizing at Tribune Publishing papers, so this what I guess you could call a post-mortem obit.]
posted by Creosote at 1:02 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
[Sadly, Elaine and the entire obit staff at the LA Times were part of last year's downsizing at Tribune Publishing papers, so this what I guess you could call a post-mortem obit.]
posted by Creosote at 1:02 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
And so passes the country's first female president.
I thought that was Mrs. Wilson.
posted by lagomorph at 1:03 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
I thought that was Mrs. Wilson.
posted by lagomorph at 1:03 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Charles Pierce: Nancy Regan Was A Tireless Warrior for Alzheimer's Research, Politics Be Damned
posted by homunculus at 1:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 1:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Stacey Patton: All you Black people here on Facebook crying over Nancy Reagan's death and calling her a great First Lady crack me up. Have you forgotten whose wife she was? Memory is short for some folks.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Raygun era initiated or expedited all the features I find the worst about America, which has culminated in the fascist, vulgar talking-yam Trump.
And to make matters worse, that policy was upended by racist jingoism. It was an appeal to the worst in people and they took it hook, line, and sinker.
American crossroads: Reagan, Trump and the devil down south. How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump
posted by homunculus at 1:11 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
And to make matters worse, that policy was upended by racist jingoism. It was an appeal to the worst in people and they took it hook, line, and sinker.
American crossroads: Reagan, Trump and the devil down south. How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump
posted by homunculus at 1:11 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
Many people had stories.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:25 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:25 PM on March 6, 2016
She was always described as putting her role as wife above being a parent and that the kids were always secondary to the 'love story' of Nancy and Ronnie. But she was really shitty to her step kids, Reagan's children from his wife with Jane Wyman, making a point to mention that Michael was adopted. I half remembered an awful story and found this:
>Michael tells in the book how a bad report card once evoked from Nancy an ultimatum: "You're not living up to the Reagan name or image, and unless you start shaping up, it would be best for you to change your name and leave the house."posted by readery at 1:35 PM on March 6, 2016 [17 favorites]
"Fine," he responded. "Why don't you just tell me the name I was born with so at least when I walk out the door I'll know what name to use." "OK, Mr. Reagan," he quotes Nancy Reagan as replying. "I'll do just that."
A week later, he writes, Nancy Reagan told him he was the illegitimate son of a World War II soldier and a Kentucky farm-girl-turned-actress. (But it wasn't until October, 1987, that a telephone call from a woman in Orange County led him to a half-brother, Barry Lange, a former Los Angeles TV writer now living in Ohio, who affirmed that he was the son of Irene Flaugher, now dead, whose stage name was Betty Arnold, and that he was indeed born of her wartime affair.)
I have to admit, I am a little surprised to discover she wasn't already dead.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:09 AM on March 6 [1 favorite +] [!]
She was dead in spirit.
posted by klanawa at 1:41 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:09 AM on March 6 [1 favorite +] [!]
She was dead in spirit.
posted by klanawa at 1:41 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
My father was one of the 11,000 air traffic controllers Reagan fired, and good friends of mine suffered terribly during the AIDS epidemic and its aftermath. I'll never rejoice in another person's death, but Mrs. Reagen gets no dot from me.
posted by wintermind at 1:53 PM on March 6, 2016 [19 favorites]
posted by wintermind at 1:53 PM on March 6, 2016 [19 favorites]
No dot here, either, just a link to a Salon piece on Joan Didion and the Reagans which is a good introduction to Didion's take on the Reagans, whom she had been covering since he was Governor of California.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:00 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:00 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
She had some damn nerve getting on any moralistic "high horse", given her rep in Hollywood back in the 40s.
That's all I'm going to say.
posted by droplet at 2:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
That's all I'm going to say.
posted by droplet at 2:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
The Disastrous Legacy Of Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ Campaign
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
My favorite take on her "just say no" campaign
posted by TedW at 2:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by TedW at 2:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Just a reminder that slut-shaming is certainly offside.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:24 PM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:24 PM on March 6, 2016 [20 favorites]
.
I will give Nancy a dot because she broke with the Republican party in her latter years largely over things like stem cell research and the doomed situation that left for Ronny. There was a period when she could have been a powerful voice for them and it was very obvious powerful people wanted her to do that, but she basically told them to stuff it and retreated into seclusion with the dying husk of her husband. She was a force for much evil in her life but I think she saw her error before dying, largely because of what happened to her husband. Ronny himself though, not so much.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I will give Nancy a dot because she broke with the Republican party in her latter years largely over things like stem cell research and the doomed situation that left for Ronny. There was a period when she could have been a powerful voice for them and it was very obvious powerful people wanted her to do that, but she basically told them to stuff it and retreated into seclusion with the dying husk of her husband. She was a force for much evil in her life but I think she saw her error before dying, largely because of what happened to her husband. Ronny himself though, not so much.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
She had some damn nerve getting on any moralistic "high horse", given her rep in Hollywood back in the 40s.
This is most certainly true.
For whatever good she did regarding a women's right to choose or Alzheimer's research, there's a stack of unmitigated bad deeds or inaction towering over it. No dot from me either.
posted by Ber at 2:26 PM on March 6, 2016
This is most certainly true.
For whatever good she did regarding a women's right to choose or Alzheimer's research, there's a stack of unmitigated bad deeds or inaction towering over it. No dot from me either.
posted by Ber at 2:26 PM on March 6, 2016
Charles Pierce: Nancy Reagan Was A Tireless Warrior for Alzheimer's Research, Politics Be Damned
I still agree with Charlie way more often than not, and good for him for giving her credit for something that mattered to him, but I can't help but think that he'd have written a much different post if his dad had had AIDS.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:27 PM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
I still agree with Charlie way more often than not, and good for him for giving her credit for something that mattered to him, but I can't help but think that he'd have written a much different post if his dad had had AIDS.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:27 PM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
They say only the good die young.
I have never taken that to mean, "If you are a good person, you will die at a young age". Nor the corollary, "If you die at an old age, you are a bad person." It is has always meant to me; if you are a good person, when you die (at whatever age) you will be "young at heart", broadly defined as full of hope and optimism, a sense of adventure and wonder, a good dose of innocence, and an openness to learn new things.
A person's goodness or otherwise has nothing to do with their age. Nelson Mandela was 95 when he died and he is universally regarded as a "good" person. Nancy Reagan never was and never will be.
posted by vac2003 at 2:36 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
I have never taken that to mean, "If you are a good person, you will die at a young age". Nor the corollary, "If you die at an old age, you are a bad person." It is has always meant to me; if you are a good person, when you die (at whatever age) you will be "young at heart", broadly defined as full of hope and optimism, a sense of adventure and wonder, a good dose of innocence, and an openness to learn new things.
A person's goodness or otherwise has nothing to do with their age. Nelson Mandela was 95 when he died and he is universally regarded as a "good" person. Nancy Reagan never was and never will be.
posted by vac2003 at 2:36 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
I will give Nancy a dot because she broke with the Republican party in her latter years largely over things like stem cell research and the doomed situation that left for Ronny.
Isn't it amazing, how the rich and powerful will turn on a dime to change their views on things that were once near and dear to their hearts when it personally affects them? Not their gay friends or those terrible poor people in the countries they help run, but if their spouses are sick, they'll do whatever it takes to try to help.
Nancy Reagan turned her back on one of her good friends when he was dying of AIDS. I see her image when I think of all the people I lost during her husband's administration. Rest in.....whatever it is that people like her get when they die.
posted by xingcat at 2:43 PM on March 6, 2016 [32 favorites]
Isn't it amazing, how the rich and powerful will turn on a dime to change their views on things that were once near and dear to their hearts when it personally affects them? Not their gay friends or those terrible poor people in the countries they help run, but if their spouses are sick, they'll do whatever it takes to try to help.
Nancy Reagan turned her back on one of her good friends when he was dying of AIDS. I see her image when I think of all the people I lost during her husband's administration. Rest in.....whatever it is that people like her get when they die.
posted by xingcat at 2:43 PM on March 6, 2016 [32 favorites]
> Isn't it amazing, how the rich and powerful will turn on a dime to change their views on things that were once near and dear to their hearts when it personally affects them?It's a disease endemic to conservatism. Bill Maher had a good bit on this a few nights ago: "The Empathy Gap"
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:12 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
My step-father, Bruce moved in with us sometime around 1983. I was in 2nd grade. He was a big, tough guy with a serious pot problem (yes, I call it a problem). At first he explained it as "rolling his own cigarettes and people don't like that because you don't pay taxes on it so sshh," which is a pretty good lie to tell a 2nd grader.
By the time I was in 5th grade, he started developing a cocaine problem. He had patterns like being super happy and fun on Thursday or Friday when he got off work until my mom came home from her job, and then like a switch flipped he'd start with venomous shouting and throwing shit and tearing up the drywall with his bare hands. Once my mom was willing to explain it, I could understand his patterns based on his drug use. I also understood that I was absolutely not to talk about it with anyone, because my mom and step-father could both go to jail.
I can lay out more, of course: serious parental neglect, driving under the influence, that time he dumped a bunch of pot into my sister's brownie mix without telling any of us because he thought it would be funny. Mom divorced him when I was in 7th grade--that whole incident was scary, too--and eventually we moved from Phoenix to LA to get away from him, and literally everything in life got better.
"Just Say No" started up in 1986, and I don't remember DARE specifically but I remember all the drug education that followed. Whenever his drug use came up, Bruce would say, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or them?" And I can't tell you what it meant when I could finally look him in the eye and say, "Them."
Ronald Reagan was awful and I have no sympathy, but I can't quite say the same for Nancy. She was a problematic figure. Problematic enough that I have mixed feelings about her passing. But it drives me up the wall when people frame things like "Just Say No" as some evil conspiracy of hate and oppression. It's not so cut and dried. Programs like that had good and bad sides. It sure as hell helped me.
.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:12 PM on March 6, 2016 [21 favorites]
By the time I was in 5th grade, he started developing a cocaine problem. He had patterns like being super happy and fun on Thursday or Friday when he got off work until my mom came home from her job, and then like a switch flipped he'd start with venomous shouting and throwing shit and tearing up the drywall with his bare hands. Once my mom was willing to explain it, I could understand his patterns based on his drug use. I also understood that I was absolutely not to talk about it with anyone, because my mom and step-father could both go to jail.
I can lay out more, of course: serious parental neglect, driving under the influence, that time he dumped a bunch of pot into my sister's brownie mix without telling any of us because he thought it would be funny. Mom divorced him when I was in 7th grade--that whole incident was scary, too--and eventually we moved from Phoenix to LA to get away from him, and literally everything in life got better.
"Just Say No" started up in 1986, and I don't remember DARE specifically but I remember all the drug education that followed. Whenever his drug use came up, Bruce would say, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or them?" And I can't tell you what it meant when I could finally look him in the eye and say, "Them."
Ronald Reagan was awful and I have no sympathy, but I can't quite say the same for Nancy. She was a problematic figure. Problematic enough that I have mixed feelings about her passing. But it drives me up the wall when people frame things like "Just Say No" as some evil conspiracy of hate and oppression. It's not so cut and dried. Programs like that had good and bad sides. It sure as hell helped me.
.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:12 PM on March 6, 2016 [21 favorites]
Bonzo sheds a tear.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:15 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
American crossroads: Reagan, Trump and the devil down south. How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump
I like how it's becoming more and more acceptable to point out publicly that Reagan all but endorsed the Mississippi Burning murders.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:24 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
I like how it's becoming more and more acceptable to point out publicly that Reagan all but endorsed the Mississippi Burning murders.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:24 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
I'm confident that there are people who knew her who will be very sad to hear of her passing, and I wish them peace.
posted by magstheaxe at 3:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by magstheaxe at 3:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
No word on whether her astrologer forsaw the death.
I miss Miss Cleo.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:28 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I miss Miss Cleo.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:28 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
But it drives me up the wall when people frame things like "Just Say No" as some evil conspiracy of hate and oppression
Whether or not it was, its impact was the destruction of thousands (if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands) of families of color.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
Whether or not it was, its impact was the destruction of thousands (if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands) of families of color.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
For me, she will always stand as the first and most powerful example I encountered of the type of woman who can believe herself to be acting with the best of intentions while being monstrously cruel. It's all a question of the assumptions you start with. It's not even an ideological zeal or quest for purity that drives it, it's a pure personal inability to think of certain people around you, but not like you, as human beings.
posted by praemunire at 3:45 PM on March 6, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 3:45 PM on March 6, 2016 [15 favorites]
💊
posted by acb at 4:00 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:00 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
.
posted by echocollate at 4:40 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by echocollate at 4:40 PM on March 6, 2016
While I differed with Mrs Reagan's views and activities, she was a colorful and outspoken First Lady. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and her political colleagues who mourn her passing.
posted by gingerest at 4:46 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by gingerest at 4:46 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Meh.
posted by spitbull at 4:57 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 4:57 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
For those who have something to say about conservatives only caring about issues that touch them personally (I.e. Alzheimer's, in this case), please take a moment and actually think that through for a moment. Your insensitivity is showing and its unattractive to say the least.
Try having a family member affected by a horrible disease and NOT becoming active in its cure or prevention, despite the timing of it. My parents are dead - one from diabetes, the other from lung cancer. An aunt was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I lost a great many friends and family to AIDS in the 80's and 90's. You can bet good money that I spend more time on those issues than I do those that haven't directly affected me or my family.
I didn't like Nancy or Ron. For clear reasons. But to be so insensitive to her experiences as she dealt with her husband's decline is appalling. And to display that insensitivity in public where other site members (who may be faced with these challenges themselves) is really disappointing to see here.
For all that this site's members like to trumpet that they're sensitive to the feelings of others, this thread certainly shows some members to be the opposite. It's disappointing.
posted by disclaimer at 4:59 PM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
Try having a family member affected by a horrible disease and NOT becoming active in its cure or prevention, despite the timing of it. My parents are dead - one from diabetes, the other from lung cancer. An aunt was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I lost a great many friends and family to AIDS in the 80's and 90's. You can bet good money that I spend more time on those issues than I do those that haven't directly affected me or my family.
I didn't like Nancy or Ron. For clear reasons. But to be so insensitive to her experiences as she dealt with her husband's decline is appalling. And to display that insensitivity in public where other site members (who may be faced with these challenges themselves) is really disappointing to see here.
For all that this site's members like to trumpet that they're sensitive to the feelings of others, this thread certainly shows some members to be the opposite. It's disappointing.
posted by disclaimer at 4:59 PM on March 6, 2016 [14 favorites]
I've got absolutely no love for Mrs. Reagan either, but I don't recall Ronald's obit thread -- or more recently, Antonin Scalia's -- being nearly this full of unmitigated vitriol. And I've got to wonder whether it's the particular fact that she was a powerful woman that is making this thread feel so uncomfortable.
Not that this is necessarily the particular hill I wish to die on.
posted by likeatoaster at 5:10 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Not that this is necessarily the particular hill I wish to die on.
posted by likeatoaster at 5:10 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Na, I seem to remember a fair number of us offering to pee on Ronnie's grave if the others would distract both the guards and the crowd waiting there to do the same thing. In this thread, we've been much more polite.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:25 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't think much or any of the vitriol here is unmitigated. Most of it seems barely vitriolic.
posted by rtha at 5:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by rtha at 5:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Try having a family member affected by a horrible disease and NOT becoming active in its cure or prevention, despite the timing of it.
Like, say, AIDS?
He did appoint Koop, which was fortunate.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:30 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Like, say, AIDS?
He did appoint Koop, which was fortunate.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:30 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Weirdly, people seemed more sympathetic in Ronald's obit thread. And most of the vitriol in this thread is due to Ronald's policies, not Nancy's actions.
posted by el io at 5:45 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by el io at 5:45 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper on Just Say No. I haven't got a good damn thing to say about anyone at all who was involved with that evil farce of an administration. And when I say evil I mean the real thing. We will never, have never, recovered as a nation from the shit they started and Nancy was at best complicit, at worst an instigator. I shed no crocodile tears. I'd still piss on Ronnie's grave too.
posted by mygothlaundry at 5:46 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 5:46 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
people seemed more sympathetic in Ronald's obit thread
2004-2016 hasn't been that great a ride
soon after Reagan passed, the Bush wars turned to shit, the housing market boomed, bubbled, and busted, we had a helluva recession, and then Dems lost first the House and then the Senate.
The only bright spot is maybe the health care reform and pretty spiffy smartphones.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:54 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
2004-2016 hasn't been that great a ride
soon after Reagan passed, the Bush wars turned to shit, the housing market boomed, bubbled, and busted, we had a helluva recession, and then Dems lost first the House and then the Senate.
The only bright spot is maybe the health care reform and pretty spiffy smartphones.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:54 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
No. Just Say No did not send people to prison. Laws sent people to prison. Laws that Nancy Reagan did not create, because she had exactly zero political power outside of Shit She Talked About With Her Husband.
I mean, I hate Reagan too, most notably for his shitty gun control nonsense, but that doesn't make it okay to blame Nancy for everything Reagan did. Women don't have that much power now, much less the 70s and 80s.
posted by corb at 5:57 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I mean, I hate Reagan too, most notably for his shitty gun control nonsense, but that doesn't make it okay to blame Nancy for everything Reagan did. Women don't have that much power now, much less the 70s and 80s.
posted by corb at 5:57 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Let's not forget the current "RADD" campaign (which I have no opinion of).
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:58 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:58 PM on March 6, 2016
Mod note: Couple comments removed; if you're to the point of literally telling another user that you understand their life better than they do, it's probably time to give the thread a pass.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:58 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:58 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
No. Just Say No did not send people to prison. Laws sent people to prison. Laws that Nancy Reagan did not create, because she had exactly zero political power outside of Shit She Talked About With Her Husband.
"The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the start of a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the drug war. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997. In 1985, the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent – one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest. The draconian policies enacted during the hysteria remained, however, and continued to result in escalating levels of arrests and incarceration."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:02 PM on March 6, 2016 [19 favorites]
"The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the start of a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the drug war. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997. In 1985, the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent – one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest. The draconian policies enacted during the hysteria remained, however, and continued to result in escalating levels of arrests and incarceration."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:02 PM on March 6, 2016 [19 favorites]
Yep! Ronald Reagan sucks, and put bad policies into place! Unless Nancy Reagan literally had a veto, though, it's not actually her fault. We don't blame Hillary Clinton because her husband was a sketchy rapist with power imbalances, do we?
posted by corb at 6:12 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by corb at 6:12 PM on March 6, 2016
We don't blame Hillary Clinton because her husband was a sketchy rapist with power imbalances, do we?
Have you not been in any recent election thread?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:13 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
Have you not been in any recent election thread?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:13 PM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]
I hate Reagan too, most notably for his shitty gun control nonsense
Of all of the things to hate Reagan for, promoting sensible gun control after being shot twice by someone who had previously been arrested on illegal weapons charges is the mortal sin?
posted by zombieflanders at 6:18 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
Of all of the things to hate Reagan for, promoting sensible gun control after being shot twice by someone who had previously been arrested on illegal weapons charges is the mortal sin?
posted by zombieflanders at 6:18 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
Promoting gun control the instant black men appeared armed at the Capitol is kind of a sin in my book, yeah. Your mileage may vary, and that's fine.
posted by corb at 6:24 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by corb at 6:24 PM on March 6, 2016
Yeeeeah I just reread/ skimmed that Reagan thread. Y'all didn't get far enough, there's plenty of vitriol to go around and the usual handwringing over said vitriol. Trip down memory lane, too, I miss a lot of those people.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:29 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Wow, apparently I didn't drop on in the Ronnie thread to express my unmitigated vitriol, clearly an oversight.
Fuck these jackass criminals. Good riddance!
Hadn't ever heard that Michael Reagan anecdote and did not know he was adopted. Let me speak clearly here: fuck you, Nancy.
posted by mwhybark at 6:34 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
Fuck these jackass criminals. Good riddance!
Hadn't ever heard that Michael Reagan anecdote and did not know he was adopted. Let me speak clearly here: fuck you, Nancy.
posted by mwhybark at 6:34 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
Maybe if Mrs Reagan had, from her experience with her elderly husband's Alzheimers, reflected on how difficult it must have been for the families and friends of all those thousands of men in their twenties and thirties with AIDS dementia, maybe then I could have spared some sympathy.
posted by gingerest at 6:39 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by gingerest at 6:39 PM on March 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Promoting gun control the instant black men appeared armed at the Capitol is kind of a sin in my book, yeah.
The Secret History of Guns
posted by homunculus at 7:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
The Secret History of Guns
posted by homunculus at 7:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
From Crooked Timber - Nancy Reagan: Straight Outta Dreiser...
Authored by a reporter dubbed “the Saddam Hussein of privacy invasion,” Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (Pocket Books, out of print) was more than a nasty assault on a nasty woman. It was also a poignant chronicle of America’s hidden history: the obsessive quest for privilege in a country that denies its existence. Through Reagan’s persona, Kelley profiled those Americans who reinvent their pasts, invoking imagined genealogies of gentility as cover for working-class backgrounds. Not since Alexis de Tocqueville had anyone produced such a devastating cultural biography of a nation committed in theory to equality but in practice to elitism.posted by Lyme Drop at 7:46 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
“Two entries on Nancy Reagan’s birth certificate are still accurate—her sex and her color. Almost every other item was invented then or later reinvented.” So begins this merciless epic, straight out of Dreiser, of a poor, unhappy girl who lies her way to the top. The detritus along the way is extensive: the hushed-up suicide of an uncle broken by a miserable marriage; a birth father spurned and an adopted father embraced, all for the sake of money; a desperately engineered marriage to a second-rate actor with a wandering eye, wayward heart and shared penchant for ambitious fantasy.
“Nancy Reagan” suggests that the cost of social climbing in America goes beyond personal unhappiness. Because of our ache for aristocracy, we’ve suffered a terminal case of collective self-deception in this country, refusing to acknowledge that the poor are one of us, that a society built as a monument to personal success means that only a few can achieve it, that wealth is not a measure of merit but luck, power and personal connection.
Only users lose drugs.
Just say No to Nancy.
I remember the 80's.
posted by Chuffy at 8:03 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Just say No to Nancy.
I remember the 80's.
posted by Chuffy at 8:03 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
There was never any doubt in my mind that Nancy was a powerful voice in her husband's ear, especially since he was already displaying the effects of Alzheimer's. And in addition to the war on drugs, ignoring AIDS, firing air traffic controllers, etc., let us not forget that Uncle Ronnie decimated the funding for mental health care, and made it damn near impossible to get anyone involuntarily committed. So whenever you pass a mentally ill homeless person, be sure and thank the Reagans.
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
Drunk History segment on the Reagans, with emphasis on Nancy's role in creating their image.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:20 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:20 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I do not want to score
Practically the only thing any USian can agree on is that they "want to score" (in one way or another). The police really set themselves up with that one.
Oh, and Nancy had nothing to do with the laws? I recall a post from a wistful DEA agent on their board, in this devil-may-care cannabis legalization era, pondering on where the wisdom of Nancy and her "just say no" rhetoric went (sob!).
Laws require propaganda. Nancy provided it in spades.
posted by telstar at 8:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
Practically the only thing any USian can agree on is that they "want to score" (in one way or another). The police really set themselves up with that one.
Oh, and Nancy had nothing to do with the laws? I recall a post from a wistful DEA agent on their board, in this devil-may-care cannabis legalization era, pondering on where the wisdom of Nancy and her "just say no" rhetoric went (sob!).
Laws require propaganda. Nancy provided it in spades.
posted by telstar at 8:22 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
I was a music teacher in the early 90's in Augusta, Ga. I served two schools and the majority of my students were from the most economically impoverished part of the city. That "awful RAP" song and the subsequent program that went with it sparked a lot of conversation with children who had no parental guidance. We had local police officers who came to the schools and got to know the kids... Talked to them... Interacted... They learned from each other. These children had no KIND of guidance other than the very limited things the public school could offer so this was huge. Did it keep them off drugs? I don't know.... I was 23 years old and served 1100 children a week between my two schools. But I know that when we did the DARE program, with the song, and the skits and the classroom discussions.... My students were able to ask questions, get answers and hopefully, it made a small impression. We did a
final DARE graduation where they performed the rap song for their families. For one of my schools, my principal and I had to each make a few separate trips to our school neighborhood to be sure that the children who wanted to sing could. They didn't have transportation...The assigned officers attended and gave out certificates. It was a big, big deal. I'm 44 now, I remember those sweet faces fondly and those busy days when the music teacher didn't get a break. The DARE program wasn't all bad. My kids enjoyed it and it was a bright spot in their lives at the time.
posted by pearlybob at 8:47 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
final DARE graduation where they performed the rap song for their families. For one of my schools, my principal and I had to each make a few separate trips to our school neighborhood to be sure that the children who wanted to sing could. They didn't have transportation...The assigned officers attended and gave out certificates. It was a big, big deal. I'm 44 now, I remember those sweet faces fondly and those busy days when the music teacher didn't get a break. The DARE program wasn't all bad. My kids enjoyed it and it was a bright spot in their lives at the time.
posted by pearlybob at 8:47 PM on March 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
The DARE program wasn't all bad.
The DARE program encouraged children to snitch on their parents. Who would then go to jail and lose custody of their kids. Seriously, FUCK the DARE program, it was fucking evil.
posted by el io at 10:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
The DARE program encouraged children to snitch on their parents. Who would then go to jail and lose custody of their kids. Seriously, FUCK the DARE program, it was fucking evil.
posted by el io at 10:05 PM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]
The DARE program encouraged children to snitch on their parents. Who would then go to jail and lose custody of their kids. Seriously, FUCK the DARE program, it was fucking evil.
Seriously? I had no idea about this...
posted by chocolatespaghetti at 10:31 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seriously? I had no idea about this...
posted by chocolatespaghetti at 10:31 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Good Lord. The DARE program was a PTA musical.... A coloring book, some cheesy videos, 6 weeks worth of skits about how bad drugs were, ( MMMKAY) local cops who came every week and told jokes and brought snickers and a big celebration at the end. It may not have deterred drug use by the high school years but it certainly did not encourage children to snitch on their parents. Cite please?
posted by pearlybob at 10:51 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by pearlybob at 10:51 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that was very much a part of the dare program. You were supposed to go to your "friend" the indoctrinating policeman, and tell him if you ever saw anyone, including your parents, or siblings, and friends doing any drugs, because drugs are bad, mmmkay?
And it was indoctrination that started in elementary schools. It was madness, turning an entire generation into little stazi spies for a profit driven police system that got to keep all the stuff of anyone they caught with drugs. It was seriously insane, and our Nancy was the proud figurehead.
And as a cite, I offer my week in juvie after my 2nd grade sister told the cops I was smoking pot behind the junior high as part of her dare "training".
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:55 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
And it was indoctrination that started in elementary schools. It was madness, turning an entire generation into little stazi spies for a profit driven police system that got to keep all the stuff of anyone they caught with drugs. It was seriously insane, and our Nancy was the proud figurehead.
And as a cite, I offer my week in juvie after my 2nd grade sister told the cops I was smoking pot behind the junior high as part of her dare "training".
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:55 PM on March 6, 2016 [11 favorites]
The whole program...
D... I won't do drugs (I won't do drugs)
A ..I won't have an attitude ( self explanatory)
R ... I will REPECT MYSELF ( myself, no mention of anyone else) nothing about turning anyone else in.
E... I WILL EDUCATE ME ( again... Self explanatory)
I'm out for the evening. I know Nancy had her faults... Please don't think that I hold her up to be some kind of Saint. But I feel like she loved her husband, for all his faults (a whole nother Oprah show) and did her best in her position as First Lady. My schools and my students, who were terribly disadvantaged, loved the DARE program. Maybe that's because that's all we had to celebrate. I know that I had some great conversations with some kids.... That they probably wouldn't have had otherwise. I think it helped just a smidge. Good night all.
posted by pearlybob at 11:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
D... I won't do drugs (I won't do drugs)
A ..I won't have an attitude ( self explanatory)
R ... I will REPECT MYSELF ( myself, no mention of anyone else) nothing about turning anyone else in.
E... I WILL EDUCATE ME ( again... Self explanatory)
I'm out for the evening. I know Nancy had her faults... Please don't think that I hold her up to be some kind of Saint. But I feel like she loved her husband, for all his faults (a whole nother Oprah show) and did her best in her position as First Lady. My schools and my students, who were terribly disadvantaged, loved the DARE program. Maybe that's because that's all we had to celebrate. I know that I had some great conversations with some kids.... That they probably wouldn't have had otherwise. I think it helped just a smidge. Good night all.
posted by pearlybob at 11:08 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
The acronym stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Although it was heavily promoted by Mrs Reagan, it was actually founded by LA Chief of Police Daryl Gates (who also brought us SWAT) in combination with the LA Unified School District as a school-based community policing effort. It didn't work to prevent substance use by children or adolescents. The National Institute of Justice says so, too.
There is nothing in the curriculum that says (in so many words) "please narc on your family" but there have been several cases where children have provided evidence of drug use at home to the administering officer and charges have been pressed. There was also concern about whether sensitive surveys administered to children were treated confidentially but I don't think there was ever any evidence they were used to build cases against family members.
posted by gingerest at 11:37 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
There is nothing in the curriculum that says (in so many words) "please narc on your family" but there have been several cases where children have provided evidence of drug use at home to the administering officer and charges have been pressed. There was also concern about whether sensitive surveys administered to children were treated confidentially but I don't think there was ever any evidence they were used to build cases against family members.
posted by gingerest at 11:37 PM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Barbara Bush picks up a glass engraved with the initials NR and, as forcefully as she can manage, smashes it on the floor and lets out a startling, guttural laugh
posted by clockzero at 12:09 AM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by clockzero at 12:09 AM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Another thing Nancy Reagan just said "NO" to, was helping people dying of AIDS. Anyway, here she is with ALF.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:39 AM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:39 AM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
This whole "heavens to Betsy, we must not attack public figures, we must be very, very nice to them" strain of thinking is so ridiculous. Nancy Reagan really didn't care what anyone thought of her in life and she sure as hell doesn't in death. As for the line that she did no harm because she was just a sweet wifely figurehead at a time when women had no power, think again. Even on all the sympathetic news hagiographies yesterday the conservative lions were saying that Ronnie would mostly have been reduced to a babbling blob of nothingness without Mommie by his side.
Nancy Reagan was a malign symbol of almost everything that was uniquely horrible about the 1980s -- the garish "Let's kick the hayseed Carters out on the curb and show 'em how to live it up" consumerism, the in-your-face "Dynasty"/"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"-fueled over-the-top opulence, the spiteful and arrogant decadence, the ossified concern-trolling disguised as genuine care, the last gasp of the rigid, horrified old-school WASPy conservative line in the face of massive cultural and social change. And her net actual contributions to American life can be counted on a thimble.
posted by blucevalo at 7:40 AM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
Nancy Reagan was a malign symbol of almost everything that was uniquely horrible about the 1980s -- the garish "Let's kick the hayseed Carters out on the curb and show 'em how to live it up" consumerism, the in-your-face "Dynasty"/"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"-fueled over-the-top opulence, the spiteful and arrogant decadence, the ossified concern-trolling disguised as genuine care, the last gasp of the rigid, horrified old-school WASPy conservative line in the face of massive cultural and social change. And her net actual contributions to American life can be counted on a thimble.
posted by blucevalo at 7:40 AM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
Don't mean to derail here, but there was some call for citations regarding DARE. I was speaking from my own interactions with the program as a child, but here are some links (and a short quote from one of the articles):
posted by el io at 12:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
The cop in Matthews told WBTV, "Even if it's happening in their own home with their own parents, they understand that's a dangerous situation because of what we're teaching them. That's what they're told to do, to make us aware."
- The Ultimate Irony: The Decimation of Families to Protect the Children
- DARE Scare: Turning Children Into Informants? DARE Student Turns in Parents for Growing Marijuana
- Parents arrested after fifth grader turns them in for having marijuana joints; kid inspired by DARE
- Medical marijuana activist in Kansas arrested, son taken away after he spoke up to D.A.R.E. officer
- DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
posted by el io at 12:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
For the second time in a month, my ability to not celebrate a death is tested. And I won't celebrate.
Mostly I remember her for her failures. She had an opportunity to do good that very few people are ever afforded, only 45 women in all of America's history have held her position, and she consistently failed to do any good at all with the power and position she had. And that's a shame.
posted by sotonohito at 1:10 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mostly I remember her for her failures. She had an opportunity to do good that very few people are ever afforded, only 45 women in all of America's history have held her position, and she consistently failed to do any good at all with the power and position she had. And that's a shame.
posted by sotonohito at 1:10 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Less than that, Buchanan never married and Arthur's spouse died before his inauguration.
posted by Mitheral at 1:17 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 1:17 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's apparently a change.org petition going to have Fetty Wap perform Trap Queen at her funeral.
posted by The Juche Idea at 4:02 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by The Juche Idea at 4:02 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Nancy and the Gays
Subhead: Nancy Reagan's loyalty to her many gay friends ended when they became a liability
posted by cell divide at 4:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Subhead: Nancy Reagan's loyalty to her many gay friends ended when they became a liability
posted by cell divide at 4:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Subhead: Nancy Reagan's loyalty to her many gay friends ended when they became a liability
Translation: She never had any gay friends, although she had many people that were gay that she called her friends.
posted by el io at 8:30 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Translation: She never had any gay friends, although she had many people that were gay that she called her friends.
posted by el io at 8:30 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
She had gay folks who were a friend to her and called her such. She called them friend and was not one to them.
posted by phearlez at 6:46 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by phearlez at 6:46 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Amanda Marcotte: Nancy Reagan’s anti-feminism might be her most lasting legacy: Nancy Reagan framed women's inequality as a "choice," a rhetorical move which undermines feminism to this day
Sorry, Fox Business Network, but feminists shouldn’t see Nancy Reagan as a “role model”: Trish Regan praises Nancy Reagan, dutiful wife and anti-career woman, as "everything a feminist should be"
posted by homunculus at 2:02 PM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sorry, Fox Business Network, but feminists shouldn’t see Nancy Reagan as a “role model”: Trish Regan praises Nancy Reagan, dutiful wife and anti-career woman, as "everything a feminist should be"
posted by homunculus at 2:02 PM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
I see that Pres. Obama will not attend her funeral, but will rather be at the SWSX festival. Some people feel that this is disrespectful; but I figure, why the heck should he attend a service for an unrepentant racist?
posted by easily confused at 9:18 AM on March 9, 2016
posted by easily confused at 9:18 AM on March 9, 2016
Because he has said in the past that she was nothing but gracious and kind to them. Either he was lying then, or he has no reason to avoid her funeral now.
posted by corb at 10:57 AM on March 9, 2016
posted by corb at 10:57 AM on March 9, 2016
Nancy and the Gays
band name, HBO series -- definitely something.
posted by philip-random at 11:04 AM on March 9, 2016
band name, HBO series -- definitely something.
posted by philip-random at 11:04 AM on March 9, 2016
Are presidents in the habit of breaking previous speaking (and fundraising) commitments for the funerals of first ladies? I think only Michelle Obama, not President Obama, went to Betty Ford's funeral, iirc.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:14 AM on March 9, 2016
posted by rmd1023 at 11:14 AM on March 9, 2016
> Either he was lying then, or he has no reason to avoid her funeral now.
No one is required to attend the funeral of someone just because the dead person was gracious and/or kind, and saying that he must have been lying because look, he's not going! is...odd. There are plenty of reasons why Obama wouldn't go, and declaring he couldn't possibly have any seems equally odd. Like, how would you know?
posted by rtha at 12:29 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
No one is required to attend the funeral of someone just because the dead person was gracious and/or kind, and saying that he must have been lying because look, he's not going! is...odd. There are plenty of reasons why Obama wouldn't go, and declaring he couldn't possibly have any seems equally odd. Like, how would you know?
posted by rtha at 12:29 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
I know that he doesn't have any publicly defensible reasons, because if he had them, he'd be giving them. And attending a funeral for heads of state, former heads of state, and the family of heads of state seems pretty much a thing that current heads of state would be expected to attend, and so it's weird when they don't. It is especially weird when the speaking engagement is a hipster film festival, and not a higher or equal ranked head of state or similar.
posted by corb at 1:05 PM on March 9, 2016
posted by corb at 1:05 PM on March 9, 2016
And attending a funeral for[...]the family of heads of state seems pretty much a thing that current heads of state would be expected to attend
...and you'd be wrong.
Stephen D. Foster, Jr.:Why Conservatives Should Stop Whining About President Obama Skipping Nancy Reagan’s Funeral:
...and you'd be wrong.
Stephen D. Foster, Jr.:Why Conservatives Should Stop Whining About President Obama Skipping Nancy Reagan’s Funeral:
While Presidents usually attend the funerals of former Presidents, they have historically skipped the funerals of other high ranking officials and First Ladies, often sending the current First Lady to represent them at the service. Michelle Obama is, in fact, attending Nancy Reagan’s funeral.posted by zombieflanders at 1:14 PM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
President Obama will be taking part in an interview in Texas at the South by Southwest Festival, where he is also scheduled to speak about civic engagement and using technology to address the challenges we face in the future. This was planned prior to Reagan’s death.
Yet, conservatives see this as a sign of disrespect. The only problem is that he is hardly the first president to skip a funeral for a former First Lady.
For instance, President Clinton did not attend Pat Nixon’s funeral in 1993 and President Bush did not attend Lady Bird Johnson’s funeral in 2007. President Obama also did not attend Betty Ford’s funeral in 2011.
Jimmy Carter didn’t attend Mamie Eisenhower’s funeral in 1979 and Franklin D. Roosevelt did not attend Lou Henry Hoover’s funeral in 1944.
And if conservatives seriously want to refer to Obama as “President Petty,” they should know that Ronald Reagan did not attend Bess Truman’s funeral in 1982, and keep in mind that she was First Lady when her husband President Harry Truman ushered in the end of World War II by ordering the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and was the longest lived First Lady in American history.
As far as I have been able to research, the only First Ladies whose funerals have been attended by a sitting President in the last 70 years was Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962 and Jacqueline Kennedy in 1994 by President John F. Kennedy and President Bill Clinton respectively.
Then I think everyone is equally disrespectful together, with the exception of JFK and Clinton. But Obama is no longer alone in being an ass.
posted by corb at 1:18 PM on March 9, 2016
posted by corb at 1:18 PM on March 9, 2016
Oh FFS. She's having a private funeral, and the unspoken protocol seems to be that POTUS not attend. Kennedy, it should be noted, essentially crashed Roosevelt's funeral, which seems far more disrespectful than 70+ years of unofficial tradition.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:30 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by zombieflanders at 1:30 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
That article does not seem to suggest that Kennedy crashed the funeral at all. Where are you getting that?
posted by corb at 3:06 PM on March 9, 2016
posted by corb at 3:06 PM on March 9, 2016
She specifically called for a small, private ceremony. At the time, state funerals even for Presidents were very rare, let alone First Ladies. JFK's entourage made things difficult, as did ongoing world events. Any of those are acceptable, and moreso in combination.
Anyway the real issue, just as in the Scalia thread, is the fact that the family requested a private ceremony is far more likely to explain POTUS' absence, especially in combination with the precedence of previous FLOTUS funerals. To claim this was petty, disrespectful, further evidence of O'bumbler's vile perfidy, etc is not only baseless, but is contradicted by a number of factors.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:32 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Anyway the real issue, just as in the Scalia thread, is the fact that the family requested a private ceremony is far more likely to explain POTUS' absence, especially in combination with the precedence of previous FLOTUS funerals. To claim this was petty, disrespectful, further evidence of O'bumbler's vile perfidy, etc is not only baseless, but is contradicted by a number of factors.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:32 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
It says she wanted, when talking to a friend, a funeral so private no one even knew she was dead until afterwards, and then goes on to say there was awareness that was unrealistic. It then says that the family honored her wishes as best they could by having a small, 250 person only, funeral. Nowhere does it suggest Kennedy was unwanted.
I think the state/no-state issue has been complicated by our weird relationship to presidents on the whole. Some see them more like democratically elected kings, that clash from time to time but ultimately have a lot of respect for each other as members of a unique class. Others view them as just Joe Guy who held a job. People with the one view find it hard to relate to the other view.
posted by corb at 3:50 PM on March 9, 2016
I think the state/no-state issue has been complicated by our weird relationship to presidents on the whole. Some see them more like democratically elected kings, that clash from time to time but ultimately have a lot of respect for each other as members of a unique class. Others view them as just Joe Guy who held a job. People with the one view find it hard to relate to the other view.
posted by corb at 3:50 PM on March 9, 2016
The NY Post reports:
The security arrangements to have a sitting President appear anywhere include a scouting party that arrives days before, clearances for all the staff at the venue, backup transportation arrangements, and a day-of entourage of literally dozens of Secret Service agents. That's almost certainly the primary reason Presidents skip out on funerals other than of heads of state and of their own families, and since they're not allowed to comment on their security details, that also accounts for the absence of an explanation about why this President is honoring his previous engagement instead of trying to turn an ocean liner on a dime.
What a tempest in a teapot.
posted by gingerest at 4:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
In recent decades, presidents have not attended the funerals of former first ladies.The President is delivering the keynote, not strapping on a VIP wristband to party down with the Mountain Goats.
When First Lady Betty Ford died in 2011, Rosalynn Carter, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Reagan all attended. Ex-President George W. Bush went because wife Laura had other travel plans. But Obama and former President Bill Clinton did not attend the funeral.
The security arrangements to have a sitting President appear anywhere include a scouting party that arrives days before, clearances for all the staff at the venue, backup transportation arrangements, and a day-of entourage of literally dozens of Secret Service agents. That's almost certainly the primary reason Presidents skip out on funerals other than of heads of state and of their own families, and since they're not allowed to comment on their security details, that also accounts for the absence of an explanation about why this President is honoring his previous engagement instead of trying to turn an ocean liner on a dime.
What a tempest in a teapot.
posted by gingerest at 4:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
gingerest - I expect this is substantially the same group of people who were upset - positively incensed! - that Obama was photographed with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:00 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 7:00 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think it's really a shame that most Presidents and former Presidents don't typically attend First Ladies' funerals. I'm very much not a fan of Nancy Reagan, but she was First Lady of the United States. The fact that hers is a skippable funeral for a President (absent some kind of crisis) is a sign of sexism more than anything else, imo. The devaluation of "women's work," even in its most exalted form.
I am not blaming Obama specifically. But I'm disappointed he wasn't the one to break this tradition.
posted by sallybrown at 8:14 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am not blaming Obama specifically. But I'm disappointed he wasn't the one to break this tradition.
posted by sallybrown at 8:14 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you're going to break a tradition do it for something or someone worthwhile.
posted by sotonohito at 8:26 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 8:26 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
L.A. Times photographer arrested after covering Nancy Reagan funeral motorcade
posted by Mitheral at 4:24 PM on March 10, 2016
posted by Mitheral at 4:24 PM on March 10, 2016
Hillary Clinton: The Reagans, particularly Nancy, helped start "a national conversation" about HIV and AIDS. MSNBC's twitter account brings us Hillary completely rewriting history.
posted by hippybear at 11:50 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 11:50 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
flames. on the side of my face.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:17 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 12:17 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Holy shit.
posted by rtha at 12:23 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by rtha at 12:23 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
Rachel Maddow has the best reaction to that tweet so far.
I can only imagine the white hot ball of shrieking rage that exists within Rachel Maddow's office right now.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:52 PM on March 11, 2016
I can only imagine the white hot ball of shrieking rage that exists within Rachel Maddow's office right now.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:52 PM on March 11, 2016
Why would Clinton feel compelled to tell such a horrible, destructive, lie? Especially since the fact that it is a lie is easily demonstrated?
I mean, sure she was at a funeral for Reagan, she's not going to attack her or talk about the bad things Reagan did. But couldn't she have kept her remarks in the real of fact and praised Reagan for the few good things she did, or even the neutral things that look good (she was always well dressed, for example, and really did have a good sense of style).
What could possibly have convinced Clinton that lying about both of the Reagan's deplorable record on HIV was a good idea?
posted by sotonohito at 12:56 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean, sure she was at a funeral for Reagan, she's not going to attack her or talk about the bad things Reagan did. But couldn't she have kept her remarks in the real of fact and praised Reagan for the few good things she did, or even the neutral things that look good (she was always well dressed, for example, and really did have a good sense of style).
What could possibly have convinced Clinton that lying about both of the Reagan's deplorable record on HIV was a good idea?
posted by sotonohito at 12:56 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
And don't look for her to walk it back today, which she'll no doubt say is out of misplaced "respect" for the Reagans.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:06 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by zombieflanders at 1:06 PM on March 11, 2016
Here's the Reagans' conversation on AIDS.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:20 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by entropicamericana at 1:20 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
That's not walking it back.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 1:55 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 1:55 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Missed the edit window on adding the air-quotes I meant to have in there. (Are they air-quotes in text? Probably not.)
posted by rtha at 2:07 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by rtha at 2:07 PM on March 11, 2016
The instant outrage is good- that trial balloon got shot down and torn to pieces, and it needs to be clear that people won't just ignore this sort of thing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:14 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:14 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Nancy and Ronald Reagan didn't give a flying fuck about sick and dying faggots.
posted by rhizome at 2:15 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 2:15 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Here's the Reagans' conversation on AIDS.
posted by Evilspork at 2:15 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Evilspork at 2:15 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not really understanding what she could have been thinking here. It's bizarre. The Reagans' destructive inaction with regard to the AIDS crisis is well known. Clinton has to know that. It's also clear from what she originally said that she wasn't talking about Alzheimers but AIDS, no matter what that apology says. And yet she couldn't have been stupid enough to do this deliberately. There's no political benefit in praising Nancy Reagan. 'Nancy Reagan, heroine of the AIDS movement' is not now and never will be a conservative talking point. This does nothing but piss off her base.
The only conclusion I can draw is that she unthinkingly said something exceptionally stupid, and that doesn't strike me as likely, either
posted by zarq at 2:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
The only conclusion I can draw is that she unthinkingly said something exceptionally stupid, and that doesn't strike me as likely, either
posted by zarq at 2:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
zarq, smart people screw up sometimes, being smart, skilled, and experienced (as Clinton is, no matter how much I don't support her) doesn't mean she won't totally blow it betimes. Possibly she simply didn't prepare as much for the funeral as she otherwise might have and so said something off the cuff and totally dumb?
"Ok, nailing it so far, wrap it up with something about supporting disease research. Weren't they pretty progressive on stem cells and stuff? They were really there for something that started with an A what was it? Oh, right! AIDS!"
Not saying that's what happened, but it makes more sense than Clinton deliberately telling a lie that would do nothing but torque off her base.
posted by sotonohito at 2:22 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
"Ok, nailing it so far, wrap it up with something about supporting disease research. Weren't they pretty progressive on stem cells and stuff? They were really there for something that started with an A what was it? Oh, right! AIDS!"
Not saying that's what happened, but it makes more sense than Clinton deliberately telling a lie that would do nothing but torque off her base.
posted by sotonohito at 2:22 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
Smart people screw up, but Nance died five days ago and I'm pretty sure people got paid to write the words she spoke. Not to mention 50 years in politics, all of her accomplishments and experience really make this a problem for me. Is she telling us that she won't screw up very often but when she does she really shits the bed? The space for this to be an innocuous error is like a long-range bullseye.
Hmm, maybe the goal was to have people think, "Gosh, she's so smart and qualified, how could this happen?"
posted by rhizome at 2:49 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hmm, maybe the goal was to have people think, "Gosh, she's so smart and qualified, how could this happen?"
posted by rhizome at 2:49 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
It also occurred that this could be a play for Log Cabin Repubs. Lotsa people talking about how ungreat the Reagans were right now and it's the weekend news cycle.
posted by rhizome at 4:26 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by rhizome at 4:26 PM on March 11, 2016
rhizome, I literally cannot understand what you have written. This was a ploy to a) make Hillary more relatable by fuckupery and b) an appeal to Log Cabin Republicans by uh, well, um, incredibly offensive statements?
or maybe it's either or. whichever, I doubt that I have accurately parsed and restated your statements because what I have written representing them makes no sense. Probably my fault.
posted by mwhybark at 5:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
or maybe it's either or. whichever, I doubt that I have accurately parsed and restated your statements because what I have written representing them makes no sense. Probably my fault.
posted by mwhybark at 5:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Are they air-quotes in text? Probably not.)
They're "scare quotes" in text.
posted by gingerest at 7:35 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
They're "scare quotes" in text.
posted by gingerest at 7:35 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
deeply disappointed that "9-dimensional chess" appears to be an actual phrase used in internet discourse about politics, but not being proscriptivist, i follow
posted by mwhybark at 10:15 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by mwhybark at 10:15 PM on March 11, 2016
Not to drag this out, but it's been used in the discourse for about 8 years now.
posted by rhizome at 12:35 PM on March 12, 2016
posted by rhizome at 12:35 PM on March 12, 2016
Patti Davis: How I Remember My Mother Nancy Reagan (this is the only interview Patti has given)
posted by Lanark at 4:43 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Lanark at 4:43 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
> Charles Pierce: Nancy Regan Was A Tireless Warrior for Alzheimer's Research, Politics Be Damned
And now this is the kind of bullshit the GOP is engaging in today: When Abortion Fear Mongering Gets in the Way of Alzheimer's Research
posted by homunculus at 10:42 AM on March 27, 2016
And now this is the kind of bullshit the GOP is engaging in today: When Abortion Fear Mongering Gets in the Way of Alzheimer's Research
posted by homunculus at 10:42 AM on March 27, 2016
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence remember the Reagans:
As the nation mourns the former first lady’s death, those on the frontline of the 1980s Aids crisis remember something else: a couple who turned a blind eye
posted by homunculus at 10:00 PM on April 5, 2016
As the nation mourns the former first lady’s death, those on the frontline of the 1980s Aids crisis remember something else: a couple who turned a blind eye
posted by homunculus at 10:00 PM on April 5, 2016
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posted by Cash4Lead at 9:51 AM on March 6, 2016