In all the hubbub about the Obama comments on Reagan, I decided to check out the whole interview myself and find out what was up.
It only took me a minute into the interview to realize that Sen. Obama is no Reagan.
Because Ronald Reagan would never say something like this:
We’ve had a federal government that has gotten worn down and ineffective during the course of the Bush Administration, partly because philosophically this administration did not necessarily believe in government as an agent of change. But it precedes the Bush Administration. I think that one of the missions I have as President is not to create a bigger government, but to restore some luster to the federal government and to recruit the best and the brightest and to say that service in the federal government is something that is critically important to the well-being of the American people...that is something I want to change...
I want to make government "cool" again.
Now, we can debate whether government was ever "cool", but that gets off the point. For all the handwringing about whether Obama is a right-winger in disguise, or parrots the right-wing talking points too much, you will never, ever, EVER hear a Republican saying they want to make government "cool" again.
Ya certainly never heard Reagan say that.
I'm here to say that when I heard Obama's words, I was proud. Because living here in the D.C. area, as a local government employee, married to a federal government employee, I can tell you right now: our government, our rank-and-file federal government worker, is pretty demoralized. I've heard stories already that if a Republican wins in '08, a lot of those smart, fresh, talented minds that work for our government absolutely BECAUSE, like OBAMA, they believed in it as a agent of change...well those folks will leave.
Because the last 8 years they've had enough of the crap.
We can debate semantics about the so-called rosy outlook Obama gave the Reagan years or what not.
But the meat of what he is saying is right at the beginning of that interview.
And it's not a Reaganite, or conservative, or NeoCon philosophy, I can tell you that much.
It's straight out of the progressive playbook.