For a long time many of us Kossacks have pointed out that as much as we disliked his policies the actions of the real Ronald Reagan as president were very much at odds with the imagined St Ronnie of the Tea Party including raising taxes 11 times, supporting the Brady Bill & assault weapons bans, implementing an actual amnesty for illegal immigrants and (heresy of heresies) actually being willing to talk to and compromise with Democrats when necessary.
Now suddenly I find a Teabagger who actually called Blessed St Ronnie a RINO.
More below the Orange Squiggle of Doom:
I was just reading Mark McKinnon's latest column over on the Daily Beast in which he points out the GOP's unwillingness to compromise is killing the party. Now putting aside McKinnon personally or the content of the column (most of which I tend to agree with) I made the mistake of reading some of the comments and when I came across this one my jaw about hit the floor:
@Colonel Fitzwilliam Reagan was a RINO. He was a Hollywood weirdo and a union boss.
Now granted this is just one commenter on one column on one website, but is this the beginning of the end for the Tea Party? Obviously Tea Partiers are anything but reality based to suddenly start turning on their idol and calling him a RINO is shocking. Is this one even more extreme loon or is this the cutting edge of Tea Party thinking. They long ago jettisoned Barry Goldwater as not a "real conservative" but having to deal with the reality of who Ronald Reagan was and actually did are they going to give him the boot too? If so who becomes the new Tea Party icon?
I'm just stunned.