christiefan915
Catalyst
reagan, yes. It was clear pretty early on that his intellectual capacity was diminishing.
Too old?
- Thread starter Big Money
- Start date
reagan, yes. It was clear pretty early on that his intellectual capacity was diminishing.
Cite your evidence.
christiefan915
Catalyst
(CNN) - Former President Ronald Reagan's youngest son suggests in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer's disease while he was in the White House.
In the book titled "My Father at 100," which is due out next week, Ron Reagan writes, "Three years into his first term as President … I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father."
He writes about watching his father's first debate with Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee.
"I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true," Ron Reagan writes. He adds: "My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...er-showed-signs-of-alzheimers-in-white-house/
christiefan915
Catalyst
Ballerina? Tsk tsk, if it's a man he's a danseur.
I don't know what people said about reagan in 1979 but it's a scientific hypothesis that men age faster than women. So Hillary's ahead of the game, in addition to havlng twice the intellect of reagan and then some.
I guess you couldn't figure out how to Google the comments leftists made about Reagans age. Need some help?
Do you know what "hypothesis" means?
Hillary has twice the intellect of Reagan?
Link up to the source of these assertions, will you?
christiefan915
Catalyst
christiefan915
Catalyst
Not quite.
How Close Did Lesley Stahl Come to Reporting Reagan Had Alzheimer's While in Office? Very Close.
—By David Corn
| Thu Jan. 20, 2011 4:00 AM PST
CBS reporter Lesley Stahl may be able to settle the family feud that has erupted between President Ronald Reagan's two sons over an important historical issue: Did the 40th president have Alzheimer's disease when he was in the White House?
In a new memoir, his son Ron suggests that Reagan suffered from the beginning stages of this disease while he was commander in chief, pointing out that his father became "lost and bewildered" during the 1984 presidential debates with Democratic nominee Walter Mondale and that in 1986 Reagan could not remember the names of familiar landmarks. But Ron defends his father, who was not diagnosed with Alzheimer's until 2004, and his aides: "I've seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office. Had the diagnosis been made in, say 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have."
Ron Reagan's comments have ticked off his half-brother, Michael Reagan, who was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his wife, actress Jane Wyman, 13 years before Ron was born to Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Reagan. Michael, a firebrand conservative, has slammed Ron for concocting "falsehoods and lies and conspiracy theories to sell books." (Ron and Michael haven't spoken since the reading of the will following their father's death in 2004.) Michael claims there is no evidence his father had developed Alzheimer's while in office: "I saw my father on and off and I never saw anything that looked like that." And the Ronald Reagan Library and Foundation has issued a statement noting that "this subject has been well documented over the years by both President Reagan's personal physicians, physicians who treated him after the diagnosis, as well as those who worked closely with him daily. All are consistent in their view that signs of Alzheimer's did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House."
But during his second term, Reagan did show worrisome signs of diminished mental capacity, according to Lesley Stahl. In the book she published in 2000, Reporting Live, Stahl recounts a disturbing encounter she had with Reagan in the summer of 1986. Stahl was finishing up a stint as CBS News' White House correspondent, and she was awarded the customary farewell audience with the president. As she, her husband, and her eight-year-old daughter were about to enter the Oval Office, Reagan's press secretary, Larry Speakes, told Stahl, "No questions at all, about anything." Stahl was angered by this, but she soon saw why Speakes had issued this instruction. When she and her family entered the office, the 75-year-old Reagan was standing by a Remington sculpture of a rearing horse, and Stahl immediately began to fret:
Reagan was as shriveled as a kumquat. He was so frail, his skin so paper-thin. I could almost see the sunlight through the back of his withered neck…His eyes were coated. Larry introduced us, but he had to shout. Had Reagan turned off his hearing aid?
…Reagan didn't seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he's gonzo, I thought. I have to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet. My heart began to hammer with the import...I was aware of the delicacy with which I would have to write my script. But I was quite sure of my diagnosis.
Stahl tried to fill the silence, telling Reagan that her daughter used to tell everyone that the president works for her mommy, but after Reagan took office, she started saying that her mother worked for the president.
I wasn't above a little massaging. Was he so out of it that he couldn't appreciate a sweet story that reflected well on him? Guess so. His pupils didn't even dilate. Nothing. No reaction.
After Stahl mentioned that her husband, Aaron Latham, was a screenwriter, Reagan became animated, and pulled Latham to a couch to discuss a movie idea he had for a film in which he could star. Stahl recalls she was "too astonished to move." A few minutes later, the session was over. Reagan was now beaming, and after Stahl and her family left the Oval Office, Reagan chased after them and told her daughter, "I worked for your mother, too."
In her book, Stahl noted that she "had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile. I had every intention of telling the American people what I had observed in the Oval Office." But she didn't. This week, I asked her why not. In an email, she replied,
Because Reagan seemed to "recover"—I decided I could not go out on the White House lawn and tell the public what his behavior meant. So I never did a report. I was obviously not equipped to interpret what LOOKED like a lapse into semi-awareness. Was it what I had assumed at first: senility? Was it an "act"—a way to avoid answering my questions? Was it some form of dementia (maybe not Alzheimer's)? I decided I couldn't report on my observations at all that night.
Later, when I would ask White House officials if they had ever seen him float away like that, they’d say yes, but that, as with me, he always pulled himself together. It was confusing for everyone.
Indeed, in her book—published 14 years after she left the White House beat—Stahl noted that after Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she asked one of his chief advisers if Reagan had been senile when he was president. "Maybe there were symptoms," this aide told her, "though I say that in hindsight. He would come to life for the cameras. He was on/off, on/off." Several former Reaganites Stahl spoke to about Reagan's mental conditions brushed aside any suggestion of mental deterioration. "People with Alzheimer's don't take down the Soviet Union," speechwriter Peggy Noonan told Stahl. (Noonan also admitted that she had rarely seen Reagan while working for him.) But another unnamed aide said that the subsequent Alzheimer's diagnosis "explains a lot." He told Stahl:
He tuned out—a lot...People didn't talk about it. People treated him with very special care. You had to explain things in elemental terms, but because he was so likable, everyone had so mush personal regard for him—everyone protected him...He was intellectually vacant, but I never felt the country was in any danger.
Stahl concluded in her book: "I now believe [Reagan aides and his wife Nancy] covered up his condition, and many continued to as they wrote their memoirs. But then, the public knew something wasn't right. There were all sorts of signs. We all looked the other way."
Stahl tells me that she is certain that after that Oval Office encounter with Reagan, she discussed with her producers whether to report on Reagan's mental condition. "I would have to have skirted around the words 'senility,' 'Alzheimer's,' 'dementia,'" she notes. "I would have been declaring the president unfit to serve, or at least raising the possibility." That undoubtedly would have set off a political detonation. And such a report would have suggested a White House cover-up—at a time when tense foreign policy matters were in the news and midterm elections were a few months off.
Whether or not Stahl made the right call—she seems to believe she should have reported something at the time—the evidence she later gathered indicates that Reagan aides were concerned about his mental condition during his presidency. Perhaps it wasn't Alzheimer's but another health issue. Yet her account and her subsequent reporting suggests Ron Reagan is closer to the truth than Michael Reagan. The Gipper was slipping while he was occupying the most powerful position in the world, and the public was kept in the dark.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/reagan-alzheimers-family-feud-lesley-stahl
christiefan915
Catalyst
The shriveling was in 1986, not 1979. And, could you have tried any harder to find a more unflattering picture of Hil? I like this one myself. Not that her appearance matters.
So the "shriveled as a kumquat" thing had nothing to do with appearance, and you searched for a less "unflattering picture of Hil" because appearances don't matter.
christiefan915
Catalyst
One point.
bowserb
Old, Discouraged Vet
Actually, I think it was Bush (Reagan's was a land line deal)...but a Republican, nonetheless. He has since admitted it was a mistake, as he had no idea how the program would get out of control, as it has. It's now just another subsidy, as over 90% of those in the program buy additional minutes. Lifeline? Of course, even $1.5 Billion a year is insignificant compared to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the creation of the monstrous Dept. of Homeland Security!
Free cell phones, and all the other welfare bennies, are why the poor of America remain poor--it's a better lifestyle than working...for those without ambition. In the majority of states, a person living totally on welfare has a higher lifestyle than a person working for minimum wage. In 12 states, a person living on welfare lives better than a first year schoolteacher. So your daughter graduates from college, does her practice teaching, and gets a job in a inner-city school filled with kids on welfare. They all live better than she does. Free cell phones, free food, free medical care, free housing, free cable TV, free Internet, and in many places free transportation. Then they buy Tide with food stamps, resell it in the parking lot, and they've got their alcohol money. Why would they want to get a job?
bowserb
Old, Discouraged Vet
Jimmy Carter was exceptionally intelligent...and one of the worst presidents of modern times. Reagan's strength was in hiring and appointing qualified people for the right jobs. That's different from hiring cronies and yes-men (I'm sorry, "yes-persons" just sounds odd), as Obama has done.
Maybe you'll get lucky, and Governor Krispie Kreme will change parties in time to run.
President Carter was a great president in a very difficult time. He was very honest and people did not respect that. He made a bold decision to rescue hostages in Iran that failed, it could just as easily been successful. Had that hostage mission been successful I believe he would have had a second term and his presidency would be judged from a very different perspective.
The Iranians had the hostages and thus the power to determine who would win the 1980 election, they chose Reagan, but it was on Carters head that they had that power.
christiefan915
Catalyst
I just don't believe that the American poor, those with or without ambition, are in it for the free bennies. There are so many other contributing factors such as intelligence, education, economics, parents and just plain luck. I consider the bell curve useful in understanding almost any aspect of America. The vast majority are in the center, the poor slackers are way off to the left and it was the same even before poor got certain entitlements. Some poverty is a given in any society, always has been, always will be. Like the bible says, "For the poor always you have with you..."
christiefan915
Catalyst
I'm not sure what governor Krispie Kreme means but if you're talking about my screen name, it's a tribute to the mystery writer.
bowserb
Old, Discouraged Vet
The Iran crisis was only one thing. Carter was president during what turned out to be the end of the rampant inflation of the 1970's. In fact, timing can be everything. Inflation ended during Reagan's term due in part to the oil crash and the housing downturn. Basic supply and demand economics ended the double digit inflation of the 1970's and replaced it with the recession of the 1980's. It was the 1970's that really caused Keynesian economics theory to fall from favor, as the new term Inflationary Recession was coined around 1970. Of course, since then, we've revised our standards for what is acceptable unemployment, so that the high unemployment of that time is now the low unemployment goal of today.
Back to timing. It is often more a matter of when a president is elected that determines his perceived success. Clinton was a terrible president, but he happened to be there during the Internet boom that drove the stock market to unsustainable levels. It was clear then that the next president would be there for the burst of the bubble. It could easily have been Gore, and the Republican party would be much more popular now than it is. Bush was also a bad president. He and Clinton had in common that they were both essentially legal draft dodgers of the time of the Vietnam war and neither had ever had a real job. Otherwise, Bush had relatively high morals (for a politician) and only moderate intelligence, while Clinton had...well, a good stage presence. The downturn of the 2000's was inevitable, but the 9/11 terrorist attack and Bush's ill-conceived response only made things worse for the U.S. economy, starting up the deficit spending for war, that Obama has accelerated for social welfare programs. Between the two of them, Bush and Obama have probably taken the U.S. economy beyond the point of possible recovery.
What we need now as a leader is an intelligent fiscal conservative. The Democrats have no one. The Republicans have become the right side of the Democrat party, and they have no one. There is no conservative party, since the Tea Party has lost its momentum and image--a condition I partly attribute to Sarah Palin, aka The Quitter. Personally, I like the Libertarian approach of Ron Paul, but Libertarian politics will not work in Washington D.C. It is too easily cherry-picked to make the economy and everything else, worse.
There. Have I offended enough people? Our nation is in deep trouble. We can't afford to continue being the world's police force, the world's dumping grounds for excess population, and a country that rewards non-work and irresponsible procreation by taxing the responsible, working minority, and borrowing from the future. We have reached Alexis de Tocqueville's predicted tipping point for Democracy, where the majority votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury. The public treasury is empty. The path we are on can only end in world starvation, world economic collapse, and possibly world war, with America the big loser. I surely don't see Hillary Clinton leading the nation away from that future!
Back to timing. It is often more a matter of when a president is elected that determines his perceived success. Clinton was a terrible president, but he happened to be there during the Internet boom that drove the stock market to unsustainable levels. It was clear then that the next president would be there for the burst of the bubble. It could easily have been Gore, and the Republican party would be much more popular now than it is. Bush was also a bad president. He and Clinton had in common that they were both essentially legal draft dodgers of the time of the Vietnam war and neither had ever had a real job. Otherwise, Bush had relatively high morals (for a politician) and only moderate intelligence, while Clinton had...well, a good stage presence. The downturn of the 2000's was inevitable, but the 9/11 terrorist attack and Bush's ill-conceived response only made things worse for the U.S. economy, starting up the deficit spending for war, that Obama has accelerated for social welfare programs. Between the two of them, Bush and Obama have probably taken the U.S. economy beyond the point of possible recovery.
What we need now as a leader is an intelligent fiscal conservative. The Democrats have no one. The Republicans have become the right side of the Democrat party, and they have no one. There is no conservative party, since the Tea Party has lost its momentum and image--a condition I partly attribute to Sarah Palin, aka The Quitter. Personally, I like the Libertarian approach of Ron Paul, but Libertarian politics will not work in Washington D.C. It is too easily cherry-picked to make the economy and everything else, worse.
There. Have I offended enough people? Our nation is in deep trouble. We can't afford to continue being the world's police force, the world's dumping grounds for excess population, and a country that rewards non-work and irresponsible procreation by taxing the responsible, working minority, and borrowing from the future. We have reached Alexis de Tocqueville's predicted tipping point for Democracy, where the majority votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury. The public treasury is empty. The path we are on can only end in world starvation, world economic collapse, and possibly world war, with America the big loser. I surely don't see Hillary Clinton leading the nation away from that future!