'Tis unmanly grief

Craig Cantoni writes in a forwarded email:

According to my calculations, it will cost taxpayers $575 million to give federal workers a day off for Reagan's funeral on Friday, although the last thing that Reagan would want is for federal workers to get another holiday. Check my math: There are approximately 2.5 million federal workers who earn on average approximately $230 per day in pay and benefits. Thus, 2.5 million times $230 equals $575 million. I admired Reagan, but I'll be working on Friday and so will my wife. But we work in the private sector and have to work to pay our taxes so that federal workers can have a day off. And don't you know that all the Democratic unionized government workers will be mourning Reagan's death.

Though I think no expense should be spared in giving the Gipper a sendoff worthy of a Viking, the problem as I see it is that they should be taking today off, not Friday. The more people I see die, the more Judeo-Islamic injunctions for a quick funeral and burial make sense. Now we've set ourselves up for a weeklong wallow in mourning.

I'll confess to the purest of motivations here—selfishness: I've got highly perishable articles that were supposed to run in Sunday week sections of two papers this Sunday, and I'm assuming both will be axed to make room for the Reagan retrospectives they weren't able to include yesterday. But let's be honest: We've all had ten years to get acclimated to a Reaganless world, and it's unlikely the legacy will budge much in either direction given how ascendent the Reagan view is on even small matters. (Even James Watt was proven right when Steven Gaines' Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys hit bookstores back in Old 86.)

Still, we look for a silver lining in all things, and here's one, from a story on John Kerry's decision to take a week off from campaigning:

The events Kerry canceled include two star-studded fund-raisers that would have raised millions of dollars for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee - in Los Angeles on Monday and in New York on Thursday. Performers who were participating included Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor and John Mellencamp.

Comments

[Fred]

James Watt wanted Wayne Newton to replace the Beach Boys. Nothing could prove that right.

[Jesse Walker]

Performers who were participating included Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor and John Mellencamp.

I guess Midler signed on when Aaron Russo's campaign folded.

[KentInDC]

Relax, Craig. The day off isn't costing a dime. Holiday or not, the federal employees will be paid. Do we really want as much government as we pay for? Besides, the Beltway and the Metro will be much less crowded Friday.

[no]

I'm a Kerry supporter, but you couldn't pay me to see that concert. Whoopi Goldberg? What, was Hollywood Squares not taping that day?

[Ken Shultz]

"According to my calculations, it will cost taxpayers $575 million to give federal workers a day off for Reagan's funeral on Friday...,"

This analysis appears to assume that what federal workers do every day is worth $575 million dollars to taxpayers, but, in reality, it just isn't worth that much. In fact, much of what federal workers do for taxpayers is counter-productive. I wonder where the break even point is exactly. How much does it have to cost taxpayers to pay federal workers to stay home every day before it just isn't worth it anymore?

[Mike]

Personally, I'd be willing to pay them extra.

[Shakespeare Nut]

Concerning the title of this item - "'Tis unmanly grief."

I commend Mr. Cavanaugh for using a quote from Shakespeare, not from *The Simpsons,* *Southpark,* or the lyrics of some damned rock song. Literacy is always appreciated.

But why this particular quote? The phrase "'Tis unmanly grief" is spoken by Claudius when he urges Hamlet to stop mourning the death of the old king. Claudius has little credibility, because he's the reason the old king is dead in the first place! The quote is placed in a new light when we reflect that it's the murderer who is deploring undue mourning for the victim.

Thus, this is a bad quote to use when referring to the legitimate mourning over President Reagan's death.

How about Horatio's line: "Good night, sweet prince/And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"

[anonymous coward]

Uh, didn't Truman die in the early 70s?

[Lisa Simpson]

Uh, Dan? Because when those kids (fucked-up or not) become adults, they have the responsibility -- plus more resources than they had as minors -- to prepare mentally and emotionally for having children and to get straightened out beforehand (via therapy, meds, or what-have-you). Harder to pass down negative character traits with a well-examined life. And some people (myself included), in examining their lives, recognize themselves as bad parenting risks, and feel it wiser not to attempt parenthood at all. Kids are a choice, not just something issued on your 18th or 21st or 30th birthday. IOW, I'd say it's free will to parent correctly.

[Jeff Lodoen]

Herbert Hoover
(August 10, 1874 - October 20, 1964)

Dwight D. Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 - March 28, 1969)

Harry S. Truman
(May 8, 1884 - December 26, 1972)

[Dan]

Uh, didn't Truman die in the early 70s?

Yes, Truman died in 1972. It's been 32 years, not 41. However, when you consider that the median age of the United States is about 36, that means that most of the people in the United States have no clear memory the last time a respected President died.

Reagan was the only decent President this country has had since Kennedy (assuming you think Kennedy was a decent President, which personally I do). For most of the people under the age of, say, 45, Reagan was the only good President they really remember. He's the only decent President anyone under the age of 62 ever had the chance to vote for.

When Ford, or Carter, or Clinton, or G.H.W. Bush die, who's going to give a rat's ass? They're nobodies; they stood for little and accomplished even less. Nor is G.W. Bush's potential legacy looking that great. It is looking increasingly like Reagan may not only be the only good President we can remember, but the only one we may ever get to see.

So yes, his death merits a certain amount of what a cynic might call "fawning", or an ordinary person might call "respect".

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Sam I Was, Johnson's remains laid in state when he died, so it's not quite true that he didn't get the full honors due a deceased president. That's a factoid I picked up from Keith Olbermann this weekend, who couldn't resist adding that "President Nixon did not lay in state for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity with American history."

That really irritated me. Like it's so obvious that Nixon was that much worse than Johnson? Somehow LBJ, who destroyed the booming economy of the sixties and nearly finished the country off because he didn't have the courage to admit Vietnam was a mug's game, is revered as a matter of course, but Nixon (whose sins are beyond number, don't get me wrong, but at least he has the excuse of having inherited trouble from Johnson) is so disgraceful even his corpse is an embarrassment.

Jesse Walker suggested an explanation: Johnson hurt the country more, but Nixon soiled the trappings of state authority, and it's the latter that D.C. finds really intolerable.

Anyway, laying in state is creepy and sovietic. Include me out if I ever get to be president! The pyre and a week of secular games for President Cavanaugh's obsequies!

[EIki Martinson]

Reagan has his dignity intact despite the best efforts of his repellent children, who seem to have inherited none of the man's virtues and always came across as being deeply embarrassed of his dignity and sense of grandeur. Am I the only one hoping that his family will fade into richly-deserved obscurity now?

[Mark Fox]

NYSE and NASDAQ close on Friday to honor RWR. His legacy halts the wheels of commerce. In a cave somewhere, OBL is smiling.

[Gary Gunnels]

Thorley Winston,

My comments were not directed to Reagan's comments, but to the comments about Reagan's comment.

"...so long as they were trying to remove apartheid..."

Well, that's the rub, they weren't!

Also, what was there to "negotiate" over? To be blunt, the Reagan administration was very soft on the regime of South Africa; there was no condemnation (at least as far as I can recall) of its evil practices along the lines of those made against the USSR, yet its abuse of its citizens under that regime were just as nasty as anything the Soviets were doing in the 1980s.

Given that these comments were likely made in relation to proposed sanctions against the murderous, despotic and racist regime of South Africa, and Reagan's opposition to such, it can be argued that ultimately Reagan would have perferred to coddle such a regime than see its downfall. And let's be blunt here, it wasn't South Africa that was to "abandoned," it was evil regime that ran that country.

[Dan]

"...so long as they were trying to remove apartheid..."

Well, that's the rub, they weren't!

So you're claiming that, at the time Reagan made those comments, nobody in South Africa was pushing for the end of apartheid?

You keep deliberately missing the point, so I'll spell it out for you:

Fact: We were willing to deal with Russia, which was orders of magnitude worse than South Africa.

Fact: South Africa had a track record of supporting us.

Fact: There were strong, and growing, elements within South Africa, both white and non-white, pushing for an end to apartheid.

Conclusion: Since South Africa was a long-time ally that was in the process of changing to a non-racist state, and since we were *already* willing to sit down and deal with genocidal nations like the USSR, we owned it to South Africa to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But Hitch said there are no intercontinental non-ballistic missiles, which to my knowledge is correct.

No, but there are ballistic missiles that aren't intercontinental. The term "intercontinental ballistic missiles" (ICBMs) arose once we had ballistic missiles with intercontinental range.

Hitchens' complaint is, apparently, that Reagan used a common, well-known name for the missiles. Indeed, had Reagan simply called them "intercontinental missiles", people would have considered that to be a gaffe, and "evidence" of Reagan's "poor grasp of reality".

[mackey]

"Reagan has his dignity intact despite the best efforts of his repellent children, who seem to have inherited none of the man's virtues and always came across as being deeply embarrassed of his dignity and sense of grandeur."

Uh, he raised them. Or pretty much ignored them, as the stories go.

[Gary Gunnels]

Dan,

"So you're claiming that, at the time Reagan made those comments, nobody in South Africa was pushing for the end of apartheid?"

Not the people who ran the country, no; the people with the power to effectuate the actual levers of change there. Indeed, those trying to change the system were being locked up and murdered in jails.

"You keep deliberately missing the point..."

I understand the point alright; I just don't agree with it. You see, not agreeing with a position doesn't connote a lack of understanding.

"Fact: We were willing to deal with Russia, which was orders of magnitude worse than South Africa."

Not in the 1980s from a human rights perspective it wasn't; hell, South Africa was engaging in nearly de jure slavery with its system of taxation, settlements, etc. that effected millions of people. Trying to minimize and apologize for the evil that was the Apartheid regime is pretty sickening. Why is that people on the right and the left are always willing to apologize for one despot or another just because it suits them politically?

"Fact: South Africa had a track record of supporting us."

Not really a justification for supporting their atrocities; indeed, supporting South Africa betrayed the goals of those past efforts - especially the fight against fascism.

"Fact: There were strong, and growing, elements within South Africa, both white and non-white, pushing for an end to apartheid."

This is all the more reason to support them with a boycott, not to engage in cowardly methods like "constructive engagement."

"Conclusion: Since South Africa was a long-time ally that was in the process of changing to a non-racist state..."

You don't know that it was undergoing such; in fact, the state was becoming more harsh in its designs right up to the collapse; the South African government did not start to work on dismantling Apartheid until AFTER Reagan left office.

"...we owned it to South Africa to give them the benefit of the doubt."

In what exactly? The boycott? Sorry, but the U.S. never negotiated human rights issues with the Soviets, so I'm not quite sure why we should have done the same thing with South Africa. Indeed, the negotiations with the Soviets concerned things like nuclear missiles and trade, not human rights; you are comparing apples and oranges.

[Gary Gunnels]

Dan,

Also, so long everyone is making claims concerning the cause of the USSR's collapse, in 1986, after Reagan's long-fought effort to stop it becoming law, the U.S. enacted a tough sanctions regime against South Africa - four years later F.W. de Klerk released Nelson Mandela and scrapped most of the Apartheid regime; in 1992 the first post-Apartheid elections swept Nelson Mandela into power.

[split lip rayfield]

what the fark does south africa have to do with anything?

here's what I think is weird, this quote: "The more people I see die, the more Judeo-Islamic injunctions for a quick funeral and burial make sense. Now we've set ourselves up for a weeklong wallow in mourning."

What's with the "Judeo-Islamic" phrase? It's Judeo-Christian. The Gipper wasn't a muslim, and America was founded on the Judeo-Christian principles, and Islam had not even a scintilla of influence upon the formation of this country. Individual liberties and the abolition of a state religion are both alien to Islam, yet are central to western liberty as articulated in the Bill of Rights.

Let us not in spastic fit of knee-jerk political correctness start referring to our "Judeo-Christian" heritage as "Judeo-Islamic" or "Judeo Christian Islamic" heritage.

[split lip rayfield]

what the fark does south africa have to do with anything?

here's what I think is weird, this quote: "The more people I see die, the more Judeo-Islamic injunctions for a quick funeral and burial make sense. Now we've set ourselves up for a weeklong wallow in mourning."

What's with the "Judeo-Islamic" phrase? It's Judeo-Christian. The Gipper wasn't a muslim, and America was founded on the Judeo-Christian principles, and Islam had not even a scintilla of influence upon the formation of this country. Individual liberties and the abolition of a state religion are both alien to Islam, yet are central to western liberty as articulated in the Bill of Rights.

Let us not in spastic fit of knee-jerk political correctness start referring to our "Judeo-Christian" heritage as "Judeo-Islamic" or "Judeo Christian Islamic" heritage.

[kevrob]

rayfield:

"Judeo-Islamic" does not spring trippingly from the keyboard, but both Judaism and Islam require quick burial, while Christianity allows for less haste in regards to interment. Perhaps this is an artifact of the emphasis on the resurrection of the body, or the relative popularity of Christianity in colder climes than the other two Abramic religions.

Kevin

[Dan]

Uh, he raised them. Or pretty much ignored them, as the stories go.

Why is it that these "it's the parents' fault" theories always go precisely one generation up and then stop? Reagan's kids are jerks because he was an inattentive father, but Reagan's bad parenting is his own fault?

Either people have free will, in which case it's the kids' fault that they're dicks, or people don't have free will, in which case it isn't anybody's fault. Blaming the parents is dippy.

[Phil]

Jim Walsh, or anybody else, correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Hitch is wrong when he claims there's no such thing as a non-ballistic missile.

Indeed he is. Non-ballistic missiles remain powered and guided for their entire flights, stay entirely within the atmosphere, and do not rely on a parabolic flight path to reach their targets.

This, too, is a bit sneaky: There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had "stood beside us in every war we've ever fought," when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war.

I can't speak to the Reagan-era government of South Africa, but during WWII, SA contributed at least three infantry divisions and one armored cav division to the Allied war effort, as well as more than a few fighter and bomber pilots. (Although it isn't made clear in the movie, Richard Attenborough's character in The Great Escape is based on a South African pilot, Roger Bushell.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I wonder if there will be anyone around to piss on Hitchens' grave when he finally kills off his third liver transplant the way he seems to so much enjoy doing to whatever public figures he happens to despise. I find him amusing at times but I sure hope there isn't some poor child out there who has the misfortune of having to call him "Daddy."

[emme]

Hey, I know this is off topic but did anyone catch Greg Palast's comments on Reagan's death? I know this is even more off topic but in Greg Palast's latest book he criticizes Milton Friedman and claims the economic recovery in Chile had nothing to do with free markets but more to do with the state's monopoly on its supply of copper. Does anyone know if this is true and if there are any sources out there countering this view?

Again, I apologize for this being off topic.

[KentInDC]

Phil,
I'm sure you are right about SA's contributions to the Allies in WWII, but SA had no draft during the war because of anti-British sentiment (that nasty Boer War thing). One small point to the comments is that apartheid did not begin in SA until after WWII (1948), so it would not have been accurate to say "apartheid South Africa" whether they were with us or against us in WWII. That's what happens when one gets off on a mindless rant.

[mackey]

"Either people have free will, in which case it's the kids' fault that they're dicks, or people don't have free will, in which case it isn't anybody's fault. Blaming the parents is dippy."

So it's gotta be all or nothing? I think parents deserve some credit (or blame) for how their kids turn out.

[Jthaler]

I think the left will be looking for their own Mel Carnahan moment in all this: the republicans are sure to try and use the Gipper and his legacy as political fodder, and the Dems are sure to act outraged.

Its always amusing to see politicians outraged at the appearance of politics.

[Jesse Walker]

I can't speak to the Reagan-era government of South Africa, but during WWII, SA contributed at least three infantry divisions and one armored cav division to the Allied war effort

Hitchens has gotten this wrong in the past as well. Indeed, since he's brought it up more than once, I'm starting to wonder whether there might be some historical level I'm ignorant of in which it's true: i.e., that while South Africa backed the Allies there were figures in the later apartheid regimes who had been Nazi symps during the war.

Then again, if that's what he means, he ought to say it.

[Mitch]

Jesse et al,

I recall hearing Michael Kinsley make the same claims to Pat Buchannan on "Crossfire" in the 1980s, when Pat had said that S. Africa had supported the Allies in the Second World War. Kinsley used some phrase like, "there were Nazis in that government!" This has stuck in my mind, I guess because, as a youngster, I was surprised and excited to discover someone on TV making a blunder. It is weird for me to recall a time when I trusted journalists implicitly.

[Will]

"... the republicans are sure to try and use the Gipper and his legacy as political fodder, and the Dems are sure to act outraged. "

Actually, it's the Democrats who are using Reagan's death as political fodder.

Kerry is stepping all over himself to portray Ronald Reagan as a closet Democrat, not like that Republican hard-liner George W. Bush.

I don't think John lives in the same reality as the rest of us.

[Gary Gunnels]

KentInDC,

"One small point to the comments is that apartheid did not begin in SA until after WWII (1948)..."

There were racial seperation laws that preceded Apartheid; the system didn't spring up de novo in 1948 in other words.

[Gary Gunnels]

Jesse Walker,

There were always elements of the South African population that were sympathetic to the Germans - in WWI and WWII. And no, it wouldn't be surprising if there were individuals also sympathetic to Nazi racial ideology, etc., especially given the virulent racism that has been common in South Africa really since the Dutch first landed there. Indeed, part of the 19th century Voortrekker ideology was racist in nature; this is evidenced particularly by their reaction to the 1833 emancipation. The Voortrekkers as a rule felt that the British had upset the racial social order by their actions, and thus had mocked the will of God. Anyway, this ideology lived on in South Africa society, and Apartheid was merely another stage of its history.

[Gary Gunnels]

Mitch,

Whether South Africa supported the U.S. in WWII is beside the point as far as the Apartheid regime is concerned. Hell, imagine imagine the reaction if stated that the USSR had fought alongside the U.S. in WWII, and implied that this forgave that despotic government's transgressions?

[Dan]

Not the people who ran the country, no; the people with the power to effectuate the actual levers of change there.

Gary, apartheid ended just a few years later! That's some pretty damning evidence that people near the reigns of power were, in fact, interested in ending apartheid -- or, more precisely, that the people holding the reigns of power weren't who you think they were.

in 1986, after Reagan's long-fought effort to stop it becoming law, the U.S. enacted a tough sanctions regime against South Africa - four years later F.W. de Klerk released Nelson Mandela and scrapped most of the Apartheid regime

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?

Let's put this in perspective. We've had even *tougher* sanctions against Cuba for far longer, and -- despite the fact that they ceased getting foreign aid from the USSR over fifteen years ago -- the people there are as badly-off as ever. Then there's Iraq. Our sanctions against Iraq were much tougher than the ones we slapped South Africa with, and they lasted twice as long. They failed, abyssmally, to remove the Ba'athist regime from power or to improve the lives of the Iraqi people. Only our ultimate invasion of the country managed that. Then there's North Korea -- once again, decades of sanctions, no progress, no improvement in Korean life. Then there are our pre-WW2 sanctions against Japan, for its treatment of China and the rest of Asia. We know how well *those* turned out.

I'm sure there are other examples, but those will do for now. There just isn't any real evidence that sanctions regimes bring about change in a country. Yes, the apartheid government was trying to enact harsh new laws, as failing regimes are wont to do, but the simple fact of the matter is that the country was changing. I see absolutely no reason to believe that the sanctions hastened that process. I think Reagan was right; all South Africa needed was time.

[Josh]

"Indeed he is. Non-ballistic missiles remain powered and guided for their entire flights, stay entirely within the atmosphere, and do not rely on a parabolic flight path to reach their targets."

But Hitch said there are no intercontinental non-ballistic missiles, which to my knowledge is correct.

[Gary Gunnels]

Tim Cavanaugh,

James Watt also predicted that the apocalypse was nigh; that has yet to happen. 🙂

emme,

Chile never implemented under the Pinochet regime most of the economic reforms suggested by the Chicago school economists; indeed, he really couldn't have implement most of these reforms given the sort of support he needed to buy from his supporters (Pinochet was a cronyist is his policies and followed a long line of other cronyist politicians in Latin America, the archetype for them all being Mexico's Porfirio Diaz). It probably should be also noted that the one of the reasons why Pinochet became so unpopular in the 1980s was due to the pension scandal that seriously harmed the Chilean economy.

[Jim Walsh]

In the wake of the right's Reagan fawn-fest (I wonder how many conservatives are surprised RR hasn't yet risen from the dead), all I can say is thank God (so to speak) for Christopher Hitchens:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2101842/

[David Crawford]

Barbra Streisand
Billy Crystal
Robin Williams
Whoopi Goldberg
Bette Midler
Jon Bon Jovi
James Taylor
John Mellencamp
Neil Diamond

The 2004 Washed-Up Has-Been, Whoring For Any, ANY Publicity It Can Get TOUR.

The first one hasn't been in a decent movie since the 1970's. The next three haven't been funny since the 1980's. The fourth one sucked as a singer, and is only funny as an actress when making fun of herself. The last four haven't had a hit record among themselves in at least a decade. Yessirree-bob, this benefit will sure get the "kids" all fired up.

[Thorley Winston]

Gary Gunnels wrote:

Here?s what President Reagan actually said (click on my name for the link):

Mr. Cronkite. He says also that we should not be concerned with South Africa's racial policies, but should make the country a full-fledged partner of the United States in the struggle against Communist expansion. Should we drop all of our concerns about human rights in South Africa?

The President. No, no, and I think, though, that there's been a failure, maybe for political reasons in this country, to recognize how many people, black and white, in South Africa are trying to remove apartheid and the steps that they've taken and the gains that they've made. As long as there's a sincere and honest effort being made, based on our own experience in our own land, it would seem to me that we should be trying to be helpful. And can we, again, take that other course? Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have and so forth?

I just feel that, myself, that here, if we're going to sit down at a table and negotiate with the Russians, surely we can keep the door open and continue to negotiate with a friendly nation like South Africa.

It?s pretty clear from reading the entire text that Reagan was not suggesting that South Africa?s support of the United States somehow absolved it of the evils of apartheid. Rather he cited it to point out that historically South Africa had been an ally of the United States and so long as they were trying to remove apartheid, it would have been foolish for us to refused to negotiate with them while we were negotiating with the Russians.

[Thorley Winston]

Gary Gunnels wrote:

Whether South Africa supported the U.S. in WWII is beside the point as far as the Apartheid regime is concerned. Hell, imagine imagine the reaction if stated that the USSR had fought alongside the U.S. in WWII, and implied that this forgave that despotic government's transgressions?

Here?s what President Reagan actually said (click on my name for the link):

Mr. Cronkite. He says also that we should not be concerned with South Africa's racial policies, but should make the country a full-fledged partner of the United States in the struggle against Communist expansion. Should we drop all of our concerns about human rights in South Africa?

The President. No, no, and I think, though, that there's been a failure, maybe for political reasons in this country, to recognize how many people, black and white, in South Africa are trying to remove apartheid and the steps that they've taken and the gains that they've made. As long as there's a sincere and honest effort being made, based on our own experience in our own land, it would seem to me that we should be trying to be helpful. And can we, again, take that other course? Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have and so forth?

I just feel that, myself, that here, if we're going to sit down at a table and negotiate with the Russians, surely we can keep the door open and continue to negotiate with a friendly nation like South Africa.

It?s pretty clear from reading the entire text that Reagan was not suggesting that South Africa?s support of the United States somehow absolved it of the evils of apartheid. Rather he cited it to point out that historically South Africa had been an ally of the United States and so long as they were trying to remove apartheid, it would have been foolish for us to refused to negotiate with them while we were negotiating with the Russians.

[Thorley Winston]

Josh wrote:

But Hitch said there are no intercontinental non-ballistic missiles, which to my knowledge is correct.

Even if correct, what Hitchens said was ?not that there are any non-ballistic missiles.? He never specified that they be ?intercontinental.? I grant that it is a quibble, however since Hitchens? entire piece was to point out supposed inaccuracies about things that Reagan (allegedly) said, it?s fair game to give him the same treatment. Particularly when he was so crass about it.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Jim Walsh, or anybody else, correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Hitch is wrong when he claims there's no such thing as a non-ballistic missile. Doesn't the adjective "ballistic" distinguish regular old parabolic rockets from "buzz bomb" type weapons like the V-1 or the Tomahawk? Any of you hardware-of-death geeks out there know the answer?

[Sam I Was]

In the wake of the right's Reagan fawn-fest ...

Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, amid a contentious war for which he was largely blamed.

Richard Nixon died in 1994 an eternally disgraced president.

In other words, Ronald Reagan is the first president since Kennedy in 1963 to die with his reputation and dignity intact. What you're seeing this week is no bizarre "fawn fest," and it's certainly not the province of "the right." It's simply the standard display of honor for a deceased president -- we just haven't happened to witness it for more than four decades.

[joe]

Dan, remember the Berlin Wall speech? In which Reagan acknowledged the advances under Gorbachev, but demanded that he do more? Wouldn't you agree that these words, backed up by actions, made it clear to the dissidents in Eastern Europe that we were behind them?

Reagan took exactly the opposite tack towards South Africa, singing the praises of its regime, insisting that everything was fine, that it had eliminated its discrimination - generally, both rhetorically and substantively, he took the pressue off the regime, while denouncing South African dissidents.

Sanctions were merely one of a collection of tools Reagan could have used to signal his support of the dissidents pushing for the end of the regime. And he decided not to use any of them, and to provide cover for their oppressors.