Clark Clifford coined the phrase by calling Ronald Reagan an “amiable dunce.”
Clifford, a former Secretary of Defense for LBJ during the Vietnam era, helped Jimmy Carter deal with Iran’s taking of 52 American hostages while America stood by helpless, and left this world under indictment for fraud, conspiracy and taking bribes.
If that’s the choice, we could use a few more amiable dunces.
Reagan caused the left to go looney. They attacked his stance against environmental extremism, his views against nuclear freezes and capitulation to Communism, and his theories on tax policies, but not on the substance of them, per se.
The left (the media, side 2 of the two-headed coin) called Reagan stupid for even thinking that way.
Hollywood had no shortage of resentment either, especially after this “amiable dunce” won re-election by winning 49 states in 1984. Classic scene from Back to the Future set in 1955, talking about what the 80s are like:
“So tell me, Future Boy, who’s President of the United States in 1985?”
“Ronald Reagan.”
“Ronald Reagan? The ACTOR?!”
The amiable dunce???? How silly! How stupid? Certainly, there are smart liberals who could never lose to….to…an actor!
In fact, I have not seen a Republican since Reagan do two very important things, both of which I think are related.
I’ve never seen a national Republican since him beloved enough to draw huge crowds that break traditional political molds. And I’ve never seen a national Republican so viciously attacked not as evil or wrong on issues, but as…well, as a dunce.
What is it about Sarah Palin that scares the left so?
How different is “I can see Russian from my house” to “trees cause pollution“???
Same playbook. Same attacks. Same fear.
You think Democrats want to campaign against a Republican who creates this?
That’s the line at 6 AM in Michigan for Sarah Palin’s book signing that was scheduled for over 12 hours later that night.
Read this except from Christopher Hitchens about Ronald Reagan:
“The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn’t like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.” (Slate, of course)
Is that different from the media shellacking of Sarah Palin over the past 2 years?
Reagan had a way to go beyond the media elites and touched something very American that no one has been able to replicate since. Seriously, Reagan’s electoral victory in ’84 was 538 to 13. In ’80, he won 489 to 49. Obama’s 365 to 173 victory looks absolutely puny by comparison.
There’s an old saying that Republicans’ biggest failing is that they don’t know what they’re doing, and the Democrats’ biggest failing is that they do. That holds true in the typical attacks each side launches.
But I’ve never seen the repeated, sustained and personal attacks to demean a political figure since Reagan like I have seen with Palin.
The stuffed shirts at Newsweek plant a leggy photo of Sarah on the cover, and it’s not just to sell magazines. It’s a vicious sexist attack that the left pretends to abhor, but easily excuses when they are the predators. Someone in Congress should add Newsweek’s recent shot to the latest hate crime legislation.
If Sarah Palin was so unqualified and so lacking in Presidential gravitas, why would anyone on the left attack her? They should be loving her, praising her, and easing her way to the national ticket where they can coast to some easy victory.
The fact that they aren’t tells me all I need to know.
The left is scared to death of Sarah Palin.
