Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
The folks at Time magazine have lost their minds. This cover is unintentionally hilarious:
It manages to miss everything important about Reagan, and everything feckless about Obama. In other words, it's like everything else in Time magazine: left-wing wish-fulfillment fantasies dressed up as "think pieces."
Rick Moran offers a fantastic takedown here, in American Thinker. He leads with:
I disagree that this picture of Reagan with his arm around Obama on Time Magazine's cover would never happen. Reagan was generous to his political opponents and, given his absolute confidence in his own abilities, would no doubt have found humor in the idea of being so chummy with someone who represents everything he opposed about government.
Meanwhile, Citizens United offers this side-by-side comparison:
Take a look at the Time cover again. Is it possible that Reagan is laughing at us? He sure has a right to. "From me to him?" he seems to be saying.
He's got a point.
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May '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Speaking of Obama, does anybody know what he's been up to this past week? Maybe he's spending every waking moment focused on foreign affairs. But I worry when the media take their eyes off him.
Jul '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Reagan rode cutting horses and chopped wood.
Obama rides girl bikes and throws a baseball like a gay leprechaun.
Yeah, they have a lot in common....
Dec '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Most likely he's taking a crash course in geopolitics. His plan to skate through his first term without having to take any hard decisions that weren't just copies of his predecessor's policies seems to have fallen through.
Jul '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
About the cover, it appears to Me that Obama is saying, "Tear down this President."
Dec '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Obama is not evil. He is wrong.
Jun '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
This chumming up to Reagan is all orchestrated. Obama has no interest in really adopting any of Reagan's limited-government or American excellence philosophy. But he wants the media to know that he's reading books on Reagan and his willing propagandists in the media are happy to report just how much these two "great communicators" are alike. (Pardon me while I get sick). Obama's SOTU speech should be a clear indication that he still believes government IS the solution and NOT the problem (precisely the converse of what the truly great man said). Obama has no intention of becoming Ronald Reagan. He just wants what Reagan got...a second term.
Dec '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Obama and TIME, I am sure, both approach the subject of Ronald Reagan from the premise that Reagan was obviously a consummate showman and salesman whose political views couldn't have been serious and couldn't have had anything to do with his popularity and his successful Presidency.
Thus, I am equally sure, "what [Obama] has learned from [Reagan]" comprises only the cosmetic and the superficial: speak optimistically of America and its greatness, tell well-timed jokes, smile and laugh with your opponents. Obama undoubtedly has studied Reagan's joke about the nine most terrifying words in the English language ("I'm from the government, and I'm here to help") in terms of comedic timing, not suspecting that it reflected Reagan's fundamental belief about the limitations of government.
Dec '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
According to leftist doctrine, Reagan was an affable dunce. With this in mind, I can understand their comparisons to Obama.
Jul '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Nah, nah, nah. Evil and wrong.
Incompetent, to boot.
Jan '11
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
The problem isn't that Reagan would never put his arm around Obama. The problem is that Obama would never allow Reagan to touch him...or be in the same room as him...or the same state if it was at all possible to avoid the situation. If (on the off chance) Reagan managed to get his arm around Obama, Obama wouldn't be smiling. He'd be sneering.
May '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
I'm really getting tired of illustrators "improving" Obama's physique. His shoulders are not that wide, and his chest isn't that developed. Give me a break. He can't even fill a suit - literally and figuratively.
Jul '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Well, at least they didn't enhance his, um, manhood. Though I haven't had a peek at the cover of the Advocate in awhile....
Jul '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Rob, I am, sadly, old enough to remember when Time was a center-right magazine. I actually read the thing in those days.
But apparently its publisher felt over-burdened by all that circulation and decided to go for a smaller market. Sort of like a soft-drink manufacturer that just can't handle all the demand, so they reformulate the product to taste like zoo effluent.
Edited on Jan 31, 2011 at 5:50pmRe: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Well, not exactly every waking moment: The President managed to watch his daughter's basketball game on Saturday, party with David Axelrod on Saturday night, and play two hours of B-ball with Washington Mystics guard Alana Beard on Sunday afternoon. So the news of the Muslim Brotherhood's ascendancy in Egypt doesn't seem to have put him off his weekend recreation schedule.
Aug '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Can't Time find an artist who knows how to use Photoshop? That image is terrible. Look at Reagan's left shoulder - the only way he could have his arm around Obama is if he was one of those multi-jointed aliens from "The Arrival".
Oct '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Jan '11
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
I enjoy this conversation as much as anyone. I wish my keyboard chambered a higher caliber; Aaron's post #1 was a great start.
But I must write that this topic seems to be contrary to that suggested on many a podcast.
Obama and Time magazine? So you highlight yet another case of their pathetic content and you want us to be civil in the discussion? I suppose when we don't make detailed reference to specific body parts being Photoshopped it counts as a civil center right conversation?
This reads like a Full Conservative thread and I claim Rob started it.
May '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
If we're dealing in media fantasies...
Sep '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
Kenneth
Nah, nah, nah. Evil and wrong.
Incompetent, to boot. · Jan 31 at 5:33pm
They are using Reagan to make him seem moderate. Nauseating. I'm trying to decide if I think he's both evil and wrong. My first reaction is that he's not evil because I think he believes he is doing the right thing but I'm pretty sure Hitler and Mao believed they were doing the right thing for their people too. Obviously he is not that bad but I'm pretty sure he'd be a whole lot worse if he thought he could get away with it and there is an element of evil in that duplicity.
Dec '10
Re: Reagan and Obama: No Comparison
I dislike nearly everything about this photo and article. The Left betrays its own inadequacies when it links one of its own to a champion of the Right (as Reagan obviously is). They want to "tear down this man's legacy" every chance they can ("this man" being The Gipper), but then when they feel it is time to play the centrist/moderate card in promoting their own guy they link that Leftist to one of our favorites.
They do this, I believe, because they know deep down that Reagan was great and was all of the things they wish their guys/gals were. No one really wants timidity and a placating spirit in their leader. They want a cowboy. (Or a "dark knight", if you are under 30 like me, but didn't have a dad who loved John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper).
The modern Left idolizes FDR and JFK, two hawkish Democrats. When it's convenient, they compare Obama to Reagan. They are rudder-less and clinging to a past that has passed them by. Modern liberalism is feckless, politically correct, and desperate to convince themselves they are strong when they are the weakest generation.