Sorry Ron, Frank Gaffney is probably right.

[Mr Rabble]

Moments ago on Hardball, Frank Gaffney insulted Ron Reagan by saying that "your father would be ashamed of you" for his stance on the Afghan war. Of course this was intended to be a low blow, and his infuriated many people here @ DU.
Now, aside from the fact that it is a low blow, the truth of the matter is that St. Ronnie would actually be ashamed of Ron Jr.

You see, Ron Jr. is a decent, caring human being, who stands for everything that St. Ronnie hated: equality, peace, justice, health and safety, among other things.

Lets look at some of St. Ronnie's accomplishments shall we?

Attacked Grenada.
Attacked Nicaragua.
Attacked El Salvador.
(Actually, attacked most of Latin America.)

Condemned by the International Criminal Court for the crime of "Unlawful Use of Force", which was in reference to the open terrorist operations conducted by Ronnie's administration against Nicaragua. Of course when this came before a Security Council vote, Ronnie simply vetoed the resolution.
Most estimates place the number of dead as a result of the Reagan terrorism in Latin America at more than 100,000.

Oh yeah- he also organized and funded Islamic extremists like ol' whats his name- Osama Bin Laden.

He also destroyed what was left of the US labor movement, and reduced average wages for Americans to the lowest of all Western Industrial societies.
He also presided over what was the largest transfer of wealth since the 1920's, which of course drove the country into a deep recession.

Oh, I almost forgot- he presided over the destruction of the US manufacturing base, leaving us as a service economy.
Ronald Reagan was a total monster.

Ron Jr. is nothing like his father- and that is a very good thing indeed.

[joeybee12]

1. Agreed...Ron Jr is blind to what his father really was like...n/t

[tabatha]

2. Ron is talking about it

on his radio show.

[malaise]

7. Do you have a lin? n/t

[tabatha]

32. I listen to AM 1090 on Itunes > Radio

[Mz Pip]

3. I think Ronald Reagan

loved his kids and let them form their own opinions. He didn't disown Ron for going against the flow - like Alan Keyes did when his daughter came out.

In Ron's defense, I think it's hard for kids not to have a bit of a blind spot where their parents are concerned.

[TheWraith]

20. That's pretty much what Ron has said in the past, if I recall correctly.

That his father always encouraged him to come to his own decisions and respected when he did, even if he disagreed.

[eleny]

4. Gaffney should never had torn back the painful scab of family realtionships

Gaffney revealed himself as the low down scum he truly is.

It doesn't matter if Gaffney was wrong or right about what President Reagan would feel about his son. He became the cornered rat and broke from his usual "stick to the issue" method of debate. He went for Ron Jr's jugular because Matthews and Ron Jr were exposing him as slime for lauding Cheney and company.

The real point is that under Gaffney's usual calm exterior is a monster who is alive and actively promoting an evil agenda unlike President Reagan who is 6 feet under and can't actively do a damned thing..

[butterfly77]

15. You said it all so now I don't have to..

this gaffeney bastard is another Rumsfeld/Cheney. Everytime they want to start bombing or ramping up a war he hits every channel on the dial ramping it up. He did it throughout the bush years.

[eleny]

19. You are so right about the timing of Gaffney's appearances!

I never did notice that. He's their slimy weasel slithering to the cameras right on queue.

[Ilsa]

26. Perfect response! Thank you! nt

[Kind of Blue]

31. Correct! I wish I could rec this response. n/t

[CTyankee]

34. You are absolutely right! This shows the true colors of the repubs. they are bankrupt in ideas and

in their morality. I think it is over for them as a Party...

[BzaDem]

5. I don't think most people are asserting that President Reagan would agree with Ron Reagan.

Even if they disagree, Gaffney could have chosen to not say what he said.

[Mr Rabble]

11. I dont think so either.

And obviously I feel it was a totally low blow. Gaffney is scum.

My point was that Gaffney inferring that Reagans policies were anything less than monstrous shows clearly that he, too, is a war monger and criminal.

[earthside]

6. No, Gaffney is Wrong.

Look, the old man probably would have disagreed with Ron, Jr.

But would he be 'ashamed' of him?

I've had some real doozy disagreements with my own son, but I've never been 'ashamed' of him for having his own principled beliefs.

Gaffney really showed himself to be the gutter-scum he and his neocon cronies actually are ... it was a very low blow demonstrating that he knew he was losing the argument with Ron.

[malaise]

10. Not losing

When he had lost the argument. Note he threw that in at the end.

[11 Bravo]

8. He had no right to say it. Fuck Frank Gaffney.

[abelenkpe]

9. I don't know

can't really say what former President Reagan would have thought.

My pop is a big time conservative and while it chafes him that I am quite liberal he has actually told me that he is very proud of me and my accomplishments. More so even than his other children who agree with pop's political point of view.

Parents kinda love their kids no matter what so chances are great that Frank Gaffney is full of shite.

[lapfog_1]

12. No matter what the policies of Ron's father were

I think Ronald Reagan would never "be ashamed" of his son for holding different beliefs.

Ron Reagan was close friends with Tip O'neil and many other leading democrats.

Ron was no saint, and his politics sucked, but he wasn't as black hearted as the Neocon crowd.

[Mr Rabble]

14. Actually, he was. Really. Reagan gave birth to the Neo-Cons in govt.

Just look at Reagans staff, and you will realize that it almost the exact same crew as George Bush Jr's staff. Mirror image.

[lapfog_1]

23. I agree that he "gave birth" to modern Conservatism

but personally he wasn't nearly as much of an asshole as Gaffney or Cheney or the rest of that crowd.

And he wouldn't be "ashamed" of Ron Reagan Jr.

[JBoris]

13. That is a pretty dumb way to praise Ron Jr.

[jmondine]

16. He also placed a wreath on the grave of Nazi S.S. troops

[Arugula Latte]

21. Here's Krugman giving a list of a few of Reagan's other shitty acts:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/innocent-mistakes/

Innocent mistakes

So there’s a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon’s Southern strategy. When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that “I believe in states’ rights,” he didn’t mean to signal support for white racists. It was all just an innocent mistake.

Indeed, you do really have to feel sorry for Reagan. He just kept making those innocent mistakes.

When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked, some people thought he was engaging in race-baiting. But it was all just an innocent mistake.

When, in 1976, he talked about working people angry about the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store, he didn’t mean to play into racial hostility. True, as The New York Times reported,

The ex-Governor has used the grocery-line illustration before, but in states like New Hampshire where there is scant black population, he has never used the expression “young buck,” which, to whites in the South, generally denotes a large black man.

But the appearance that Reagan was playing to Southern prejudice was just an innocent mistake.

Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South,” he didn’t mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake.

In 1982, when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, he had no idea that the issue was so racially charged. It was all an innocent mistake.

And the next year, when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission, it wasn’t intended as a gesture of support to Southern whites. It was all an innocent mistake.

Poor Reagan. He just kept on making those innocent mistakes, again and again and again.

PS: It has been pointed out to me that Reagan opposed making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday, giving in only when Congress passed a law creating the holiday by a veto-proof majority. But he really didn’t mean to disrespect the civil rights movement - it was just an innocent mistake.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

17. Old Reagan did have the sense to get out of Beirut 3 months after

the bombing of the Marine barracks in '83.
I.e., he recognized a lost cause as far as US military
presence went (even though it was as part of a "UN
peace-keeping force").

[supernova]

18. IIRC, Ron Jr and RR Sr had a lot of issues

while he was in the WH.

[Bumblebee]

22. No, he would disagree but not be "ashamed." Both he and Nancy appeared to

have been quite tolerant of their two biological children who were much more liberal than their parents.

[spanone]

24. it's not for mr gafney to remotely conjecture on a father/son relationship. fuck him. cheap shot.

[anonymous171]

25. Ronald Reagan was an evil man. nt

[Fire1]

27. Ronald Reagan was a drug and arms dealer. n/t

[Raine]

28. It's not up to Gaffney to make a judgement like that

no matter what I think RR would be proud that Ron has a mind of his own. That's what most parents want of their children, that they think for themselves.

[David Zephyr]

29. This DU'er respectfully disagrees.

I don't buy that Ronald Reagan, who I certainly disagreed with for so many years, was ashamed of his son for anything. Reagan not only tolerated Patti's continued public criticism of him, but he embraced her. This is something she readily is honest about.

And in spite his tough-talking, big Western man image, the fact is that when Ron wanted to study ballet, Ronald immediatey called on his pal, one of the greatest dancers ever on film, Gene Kelly, to help his son. That's hardly the act of a man with shame. It's an act of pride and love.

This whole thing is none of any of our business.

I like Ron Reagan. A lot. He has the best radio show in America in my opinion.

[Sebastian Doyle]

30. Frank Gaffney is a neocon Likudist PNAC piece of shit.

So, by definition, he cannot be right about anything.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

33. Why are people like Gaffney still allowed on the air?

It's not that Gaffney is a conservative or right winger. I appreciate the few occasions when a conservative has an interesting opinion. It's that Gaffney is a liar and he's still maintaining that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was supporting terrorists. This failure to recognize reality makes him unqualified to be any kind of pundit or to appear on any political discussion shows. He's entitled to his political opinion but he's not entitled to manufacture facts out of thin air or rewrite history. That's the worst sin a tv talking head can make.