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Quote of the Day: Dateline 1981–US President Shot!
Only two months into his first term as the 40th President of the United States, and at the (relatively, I now understand) young age of seventy, Ronald Wilson Reagan was shot by John W. Hinckley, Jr. on March 30, 1981.
Reagan was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off his limousine and hit him under his arm, breaking a rib, penetrating his lung, causing massive internal bleeding, and lodging just short of his heart. A Washington DC police officer, Thomas Delahanty, was hit. Tim McCarthy, a Secret Service Agent and member of Reagan’s protective detail was hit. And Presidential Press Secretary Jim Brady suffered a bullet wound to the head.
Arriving at George Washington University Hospital, and close to death, Reagan managed to remark to the distraught Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” invoking Jack Dempsey’s 1927 comment to his wife after he lost the world heavyweight boxing championship to Gene Tunney.
But today’s quote of the day?
Reagan’s comment just after he got to the operating room, when–having lost almost half his blood volume, and upon removing his oxygen mask–he gently quizzed the attending staff:
I hope you’re all Republicans…
Whereupon Joseph Giordano, the leader of the medical team called to deal with the crisis, the head of GWU’s trauma team–and a registered Democrat–responded “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”
Gosh. What a time it was to be alive.
PS: In September of 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman (Clinton nominee) granted Hinckley unconditional freedom, beginning in June of 2022, six years after a loosening of restrictions following his conditional release from a psychiatric institution. He remains the only person who has ever shot a US President who’s been freed from confinement.
Of those injured on the day, President Reagan made a full recovery and went on to a win a second term as President. Press Secretary James Brady was severely impaired, and died–largely as a result of his injuries–decades later. Secret Service Agent McCarthy and DC Police Officer Delahanty are still alive, having eventually recovered from their injuries. Both men, having gone on to subsequent careers in other areas of law enforcement before retiring, were not pleased at the news of Hinckley’s release, although they appear to have come to terms with it.
Published in General
Assassinations of Presidents is a long-standing leftie solution to their anger.
Worried what Jodie Foster might offer now.
It’s not exactly a U.S. President that he tried to assassinate. It was a Republican U.S. President. It’s not the same thing.
Insert picture of English Bob grinning on the train.
I was in fourth grade when Reagan was shot, and I remember it vividly. I attended a small school with about 35 kids in 6 grades. Our principal lived in an apartment attached to the school, and all the teachers and students crowded into her living room to watch the coverage on the only television in the school. The shock of the TV anchors and the confusion in the top levels of the government made an impression on me.
In the fall of 1980, the fifth and sixth graders had run mock campaigns for Reagan, Carter, and John Anderson before the election. They came to each classroom to make speeches and made campaign signs to hang around the school. We had a mock election on Election Day, and Reagan won. I voted for John Anderson because I thought the boy who was running Anderson’s campaign had given the best speech. All the teachers and students had gathered in the principal’s living room to watch the inauguration, and I became an instant and lifelong Reagan fan when I heard his speech.
Just two months later we gathered in the same place to watch the tragedy of the attempted assassination.
I have begun to wonder lately whether all U.S. presidential assassinations have been born out of left wing conspiracies.
One of the professors stopped me in the hall and told me the news: President Reagan had been shot. My first words: “Oh, no. George Bush.”
Hah. You thought you could talk in a language I didn’t understand, but I looked him up.
Dude. Dang near same, word for word.
Curses! Foiled again! You must be one o them John Bull fellas.
I didn’t much care for that movie. Was it just me?
Some were just nuts – Hinkley and Charles Guiteau (Garfield) were nuts
Some assassinations are attempted with firearms. Others with the media.
or the permanent bureaucracy
I’ll bet that you’re not alone in that, but I simply adore that movie. It has its rough edges, like the treacly voice-over coming and going.
As much as I liked it, I didn’t really appreciate it fully (says I) until I actually watched the Dollars trilogy of westerns. Good Lord, those were awful. Movies that I enjoyed watching between commercial breaks when I was a teenager, but simply unwatchable as adult fare. I had resented Eastwood’s “deconstruction” of the Western, because ” ‘Murica!” But you know what? Those movies needed deconstructing. Some great moments, but really like dream sequences — no plot, no connective tissue between scenes other than the notion of a girl, or the notion of gold, or the notion of vengeance. Nobody’s motives make sense, and the ridiculous plot armor makes Keystone Spacecop Storm Troopers look like Liam Neeson-esque master assassins with particular sets of skills.
“Amazing! You cleared out a bar full of unarmed men! How did you know to shoot the fat man first?” I got lucky.
“He had it coming!” We all got it coming, kid.
*Kicks Bob half to death in the street* “You probably think I’m kicking you, Bob. Ain’t so. I’m talking to you, and I’m talking to everybody who thinks they’re gonna come in here after you. There ain’t no whore’s gold. Not in this town.”
While the Sheriff eventually rides off on his abuse of power, his attempts to keep the trouble out of the town are not morally unambiguous. Very “well what would you do?”
Anyway, a small defense.
Or maybe you’re just one of them John Bulls…
I was in third grade and I remember it vividly. I was skipping school and walking upstairs to see if neighbor Ben might be Home when halfway up…. He jumps out the door screaming, “Reagan got shot!! Reagan got shot!!”
I turned around and ran downstairs, back into Our apartment, and jumped in bed under the covers.
I like Clint Eastwood. And most of his movies. Just not so much this one.