The last time I mentioned Reagan was in Oct.
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,116730.msg471634.html#msg471634
I wrote:
I hate to bad mouth Reagan because I think he was one of the top 5 US Presidents of all time, but since he is the conservative gold standard...Do you think Reagan compromised his principles just a little by signing all those budgets? As I recall he promise to reduce the deficit and national debt.
I can see how you confused that with "I hate Reagan" cause you're a liar. Like Obama.
Actually, Reagan did compromise some of his principles, and that isn't a knock against him because, to all appearances, he was quite well-versed in the art of compromise - which is one of the fundamental arts of the overarching art of politics - and it must have been his judgment that the principles he generally compromised on were those that could be compromised without fundamentally compromising who he was politically or the broader goals he was trying to reach, and in each situation, that what he got back in return was worth the cost of the compromise.
Both today's republican moderates and today's republican conservatives have utterly failed at this most basic skill of politics; the conservatives because they refuse to consider compromising even a jot, tittle, or iota, even on things that are of secondary or tertiary importance; the moderates because they are all too willing to compromise, at the drop of a hat, and on anything and everything, just so long as they're given some of the credit for being "good guys". Neither group really knows the value of one's complete repetoire of values, principles, and goals, nor how to sort them so that those that cannot be compromised at all are separated from the rest, and the rest are sorted in order as to how easily each can be compromised and what "value" must be received in return to make that compromise worth the while.
Having said all this, just because Reagan was a master at the art of compromise does not mean that he didn't make mistakes and that he didn't compromise some things that, in retrospect, he should not have compromised. On the other hand, Reagan would not be nearly as famous as a President if he hadn't been willing to compromise as and where necessary to achieve the more important goals he sought to achieve.
That, I think, is the true take-away from Reagan, and the aspect of his presidency that should be studied and copied, because those skills are instrumental, not substantive, and can be applied in a wide variety of situations; given that the second decade of the twenty-first century is not the same as the ninth decade (1980s) of the twentieth century, that is where the real value of Reagan's example lies: his political tools - the things he used to work his political magic - and not so much every jot and tittle of his substantive politics.
Unfortunately, on this measure both republican conservatives and moderates have failed utterly. Depending on one's particular persuasion, the one group is better than the other depending on whether you prefer martyrdom over capitulation, or vice-versa.
