Newt - really?
As someone who lived under Ronald Reagan's "magical" presidency I am always amazed how people like Newt explain how wonderful it was as if there was no dissent, no doubts and no regrets. I especially love the tale about Reagan the Soviet killer as if 40 years of cold war brinkmanship was irrelevant once "real men" took over the helm.
It doesn't surprise me, we all have heroes and we tend to blow them all up a bit when telling our stories of them. But we have something different here and it is really very simple to recognize. At least 1/3 to 1/2 of our fellows Americans live in a fantasy world created by a revisionist history of our very recent history, not some history no one experienced first hand like the "founding father's". Usually most of the witnesses have to be dead in order to rewrite history in your own image and get away with it. Today, many (too many) ignore our own memories and gladly accept any version of history that fits our mood. And this sadly means that we are doomed to repeat our worst mistakes over and over again until we have no history left to rewrite.
Newt is an excellent example of what I am saying. They say he is a very intelligent person so I can only assume that his obvious lack of concern for accurately presenting his lessons from history is deliberate and meant to tap into the sorry state of affairs described above.
I know, many believe this is nothing new and they may be right but I sense something different and not in a good way. There was a time I believe when a politician on a talking head show said something so patently wrong as Obama has raised taxes or tripled the deficit would have been immediately called out on it and would need to have either a clever way of ignoring the challenge or back pedal on the exaggerations. No longer. I have heard Newt and Romney both rattle on for several minutes saying nothing that was even remotely accurate on the Sunday shows and the moderator just says "so lets move on to other issues" as if they just listened to a reasoned presentation of facts when they know full well it wasn't. Let the viewer decide.
Well they have and it looks like half of them don't have the sense they were born with to know when they are being conned.