Oooops - Presidents' Lunch Today: "Only Ronald Reagan is missing"

[Jackeens]

According to the newsreader on Sky News (UK).....I had to double-check that Reagan was, indeed, deceased.

[hlthe2b]

1. They might note, then that Ford too is missing...

Geebus. :shrug:

[redstate_democrat]

2. I didn't see Nixon or Thomas Jefferson either.

[BattyDem]

17. I was very surprised that Lincoln didn't attend.

Especially when you consider how much Obama admires him. It would have been nice. He should have made the effort.

[Cha]

31. And where the frick was

Eisenhower!

[Guaranteed]

33. Did Harrison ever get over his pneumonia? nt

[Seen the light]

3. "Attempts to contact Chester Arthur to explain his absence were unsuccessful."

[Jennicut]

4. LOL. Ronnie might come down from the heavens to grace their presence

One never knows, perhaps Nancy can consult her astrologer? I love astrology by the way, but in the White House?

[JuniperLea]

8. Or up from the depths...

Rattling chains like Marley's ghost.

[Jennicut]

16. Yeah, I hadn't hought of that. Though which one is more evil, Nixon or Ronnie?

[JuniperLea]

18. Wow... now that is a deep question...

Nixon was blatant, Ronnie more nuanced... hard to say who wins the evil award though.

[Occam Bandage]

21. Ronnie, by a mile.

Nixon was a tortured man shaped by tragedy, insecurity, and self-loathing. He craved attention and approval but hated those whose attention and approval he sought; it was never enough to be successful, it was never enough to be liked. He ended the Vietnam war, dialed down the Cold War, opened China, instituted a bevy of surprisingly liberal reforms at home, and was cruising to one of the biggest landslide re-elections in history. But Nixon...Nixon was never secure enough. He lived in eternal fear of losing the respect he so desired, and so disdained. He ended up being brought down by the same internal forces that thrust him to success. He did evil things, but is, in my eyes, a figure more suited to a Greek tragedy than to the bowels of Hell.

Ronnie, on the other hand, was a stupid cowboy who couldn't bother to give a fuck what his policies did to people.

[Jennicut]

24. I have to agree. Ronnie was worse.

[izquierdista]

25. It's hard to fault the stupid

For they just do the stupid that they are. Now Nixon, he is evil that lasts long after he is gone. He launched the downfall of America in 1968 with his "Southern Strategy". Every Repub since has been copying his race-baiting, code-worded ads to win appeal to people who can't tell what their best interests are. Nixon also made budget deficits OK, and Ronnie could never have piled up the debt had not Nixon shown the way. He also confirmed the role of insurance companies as the final arbiters in which Americans can and cannot get health care.

You may say, "Nixon can't be all bad, he created the EPA", but you would fall trap to Repub machinations. They created the EPA so they could staff it with corporate serfs who would never bother to enforce what was on the books. Kind of the way they use HHS to make sure that there is no organized dissemination of birth control information.

Every time I drive through Yorba Linda on the 91 and see the sign for the "Richard M. Nixon Birthplace and Burial Site" I get a powerful urge to stop and empty my bladder.

[Occam Bandage]

26. Nixon "made budget deficits okay?"

Come on, that's silly. Nixon lowered the budget deficit over the course of his Presidency. "Confirmed the role of insurance companies?" Possibly, but he also proposed a system of universal health care that is almost point-for-point identical to the one Hillary Clinton proposed during this Presidential campaign.

As for Nixon creating the EPA, OSHA, SSI, National Parks Legacy program, indexing Social Security to inflation, and America's first affirmative action program? It gets hard to keep saying "well, he only did that because he wanted to appoint Republicans in those agencies." Well, perhaps he did want to appoint Republicans, but do you really think Ronnie or Bush would have created an EPA? Hell no, they'd have blocked that shit.

Defending Ronnie because "he's stupid?" Bullshit. He was not a goddamn retard incapable of telling right from wrong. He was a lazy jackass who didn't give a shit whether what he was doing was right or wrong so long as his buddies turned a profit and patted him on the back. I think that's far more evil than a paranoid, self-pitying/self-loathing man (who ended up destroying himself through his paranoia) is.

[izquierdista]

30. You still don't get it

America was on the ascent from FDR up to 1968. Nixon reversed that and the country has been losing ground for the last 40 years. Reagan was just a pitch man saying his lines in the middle of those 40 years. He was merely an actor playing a role, only as useful as long as he could remember his lines. He was a chump, a shill for the people who really mattered, corporate CEOs. The blame can't rest with him, as he never had an original thought after he was indoctrinated by anti-Communists in the '50s

Nixon, on the other hand, came up through the ranks of politics by BEING a person who pulled the strings, not the puppet at the end of the strings. After Nixon, the powers that be saw that it was dangerous to have one of their own in such a visible position. That's why they have pushed an actor, a blueblood twit and his dimwit offspring into the Oval Office. Nothing that these three stooges have done has been in any way original in the way that Nixon could bait and switch.

You also need to look at the data on budget deficits again. After World War II, budget surpluses were the norm until Nixon decided it wasn't necessary to pay for his adventures in VietNam and Cambodia. He was the one who made it possible for Republicans to part from their former role as strict fiscal 'conservatives'.

[FSogol]

29. Ronnie without a doubt. n/t

[bluestateguy]

5. and Ray Charles is going to sing at the Inaugural

nt

[JuniperLea]

6. I hope Ronnie isn't miffed by this...

It's not easy seeing your peers gather for a reunion of sorts and you are the only one not invited. Just ask John Paul Jones!

[jillan]

7. That's no excuse.

j/k

[WI_DEM]

9. yeah and this morning they said, "All of America's living ex-presidents" what did we think?

that the dead ones would be there too?

[Jackeens]

11. ROFL

[BattyDem]

15. LOL!

I can imagine * saying, "NO ONE says no to me! Now dig 'em up ... they're comin' to lunch! :rofl:

[HughMoran]

10. He's a doornail!

:rofl:

[BattyDem]

12. I hope they didn't attempt to contact Nancy Reagan to find out why Ronnie didn't attend.

I guess they missed the entire week-long funeral. :eyes:

[Clio the Leo]

13. Where was John Adams? NT

[onehandle]

14. They didn't mention that Teddy Roosevelt made it.

Bad reporting, if you ask me.

[Beacool]

19. Hey, where's Washington?

As the first president he should at least have been invited. How rude!!!!!!

:7

[Graybeard]

20. Did W look under the couch?

He did when he was joking about WMDs. "No, no Ronnie Raygun there."

[Jackeens]

32. Uggh, there are probably 8 year old semi-chewed pretzels under there.

[Occam Bandage]

22. Grover Cleveland didn't show up. Twice.

[BuelahWitch]

23. Nor did they invite Nancy's psychic to channel him!

Those bastards! :cry:

[JFKfanforever]

38. LOL! But did they invite Rev Rick to say grace?

He would have done it "right", I suppose.

[truthisfreedom]

27. Didn't see Coolidge there. Or Truman.

Hmm.

[snooper2]

28. He was "missing" even when he was still here

:rofl:

[Hippo_Tron]

34. I heard Andrew Jackson dropped in but couldn't stay

[baldguy]

35. He's just waiting for the right moment.

[Jackeens]

36. OH CHRIST!

[GreenInNC]

37. As a North Carolianian

I want to know why James K Polk was not invited? I can understand them not inviting Andrew Johnson though.

[jberryhill]

39. It's not a party without Millard Fillmore in da house

That Millard, he's an animal when you get a few drinks in him.