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In the same way that Hillary's waterworks dominated the last news cycle before the New Hampshire primary, it looks like Obama's comments about Ronald Reagan are dominating the pre-Nevada airwaves.
Both Hillary and Bill went all out today criticizing Obama for his suggestion that Reagan "changed the
trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way
that Bill Clinton did not" during an interview with the Reno Journal-Gazette Monday. Obama also recently called the Republican party the "party of ideas" for the past fifteen years.
"I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security," Hillary told an audience in Las Vegas. "I don't
think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't
think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug
companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing
prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better
idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt."
For Bill Clinton, of course, the attack was more personal. Not only did Obama call him out by name -- he basically said Bill was a lesser leader than Reagan. The former president's reply was blunt: "I can't imagine any Democrat seeking the presidency would say they
were the party of new ideas for the last 15 years. But it sounded good
in Reno I guess."
Obama's defenders say he wasn't praising Reagan's policies, but rather Reagan's crossover appeal. "What Reagan did is he created Reagan Democrats," said Rep. Robert Wexler during a campaign conference call today. "What Obama is creating is Obama Republicans and Obama independents."
Whatever Obama's intentions, he should have seen this coming. For Dems, praising Ronald Reagan is as anathema as insulting Him is for Republicans. You just don't do it. Unless, of course, you're campaigning on a message of bipartisan cooperation and long-view political landscape shifting. In that case, you just might take the risk of praising Reagan. Sure, it could hurt you in the short term, but down the road it might help Democrats appropriate Reagan's legacy in the same way both parties have tried to appropriate Lincoln's. In the end, that could be a much more devastating blow to Republicans than shying away from Reagan. Maybe that's what he was thinking. Or maybe he just wanted to make Bill mad.
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Quick follow-up to our earlier item about Giuliani's new ad, in which he discusses the Iranian hostage crisis. He omits his usual line about the mullahs looking into Ronald Reagan's eyes in 1981 and releasing the American hostages they had held for 444 days. But he still implies that the Iranians released them out of fear or respect for Reagan.
Giuliani is right when he says that "[t]he one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which
Ronald Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as President of the United
States.” The events were happening simultaneously. But he has been wrong to suggest that this had anything to do with Reagan. If anything, the Iranians were just waiting for Carter to leave.
Politico's Jonathan Martin pointed this out earlier this year, quoting Mark Bowden's 2006 book "Guests of the Ayatollah": All of the hostage takers I
interviewed said that the decision to wait until Carter officially left
office was deliberate, a final insult to the man they had propped up as
the representative of the devil on earth.
The implication that the Gipper somehow struck fear into their hearts and thus provoked the hostages' release is borderline preposterous. Amazon.com yields another interesting tidbit from the same book: The Iranians guarding the hostages weren't scared of Reagan -- they wanted him to win: They were convinced that anyone other than Carter would understand their reasons for seizing the embassy and would admit the great wrongs America had committed in Iran. (p. 554)
Not to mention that hostage negotiations had begun under Carter, that Iraq's invasion of Iran forced their hand, and that Iran-affiliated Islamists continued to kidnap Americans left and right throughout the 1980s. Surely they had looked into Reagan's eyes too, right?
To his credit, Giuliani was careful to back up his facts this time around. In previous ads, such as this one about health care, he played more than a little fast and loose with statistics. Maybe he omitted the "eyes" line because he knew he would get this sort of response. But the causal implication is still there. He takes the fact of the simultaneous inauguration/hostage release and uses it to bolster a myth. Unfortunately, it's not one that any of his opponents are about to call him out on.
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