This triple-five vote is based solely on performance. Not on content. The sad part is, with his record of raising taxes, making abortion more available, easing immigration laws, compromising with Democrats (doing those things as Governor AND as President), and negotiating with the Communists (both Russian and Chinese), in today's Republican Party... Ronald Reagan WOULD be considered a liberal. Does that mean I should let Reagan off the hook? No, but it does mean I should give him SOME credit for realizing that conservatism wasn't always the answer. But then, today's Republicans wouldn't recognize the words and deeds of Jesus, either. (The free health care, kicking the money-changers out of the temple, impugning the characters of the guys trying to kill the hooker, etc.)

Michael - I sincerely meant the compliment in my outro. Unlike too many people on BOTH sides, you ARE a man of sincere convictions as I am when not being cheeky. Reagan was OK, but I'm closer to his successor...also no icon of extremists. ;D

Ronnie was one of a kind. Great job Ribber!!!

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em", they say. Since 30 years of scorn, slander, and derision haven't proven effective in destroying Reagan's accomplishments or his popularity, the Left has now decided to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, they've chosen to do so by some creative revisionist history, as the misrepresentations posted by Mr. Pacholek show.

@ MP: I see your revisionism extends to Jesus, too. Not only have you taken those stories out of context to try to substantiate your own political views, but you've ignored a great deal in terms of a complete portrait. Then again, to the extent that he encouraged his disciples to quit their jobs and rely on handouts, he may just have been a liberal after all...

All hail The Gipper, er Ribber! Tricklin' ya down some fives!

OMR: Michael is indeed a man of sincere convictions (long rap sheet -- KIDDING!), but unfortunately, they're based on incorrect information. Strong convictions aren't an asset unless based on fact.

Michael, before you argue, i just finished watching a documentary on RR on the History Channel --- hardly a right-wing platform. (pretty neutral overall - based on "fact".) If you can catch a replay, Tivo, whatever, watch it. It backs up what FG and I said at OMR's trib to RR's 100th birthday. *With actual news footage of the day".

"Raising taxes"? Weren't you previously condemning his tax *cuts*? Do your "strong convictions" change with every day, every post, or what?

OMR: Good job. Irony: Reagan started out as an FDR New Deal-er, but saw the error of those ways, and did a 180 - *changing his convictions when he saw that they were wrong". If only certain others would do that. ...

@ TJC: See the denouncement of "trickle down" as a deliberate Leftist perversion of the proper economic term, "multiplier effect", at the other parody discussed above:
http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/franksinatra344.shtml
TT to Susanna Viljanen, paragraph 6.

555, and LOL @ FG's last line!

Not a big fan of Reagan, but good job.

Reagan shifted his views- along with a number of others (Goldwater Democrats, etc.) - when it became clear that the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" were turning around. He explained in his 1965 biography as follows: "“The classic liberal used to be the man who believed the individual was, and should be forever, the master of his destiny. That is now the conservative position. The liberal used to believe in freedom under law. He now takes the ancient feudal position that power is everything. He believes in a stronger and stronger central government, in the philosophy that control is better than freedom. The conservative now quotes Thomas Paine, a longtime refuge of the liberals: ‘Government is a necessary evil; let us have as little of it as possible.’”

What MP and others of his ilk don't understand (or don't wish to acknowledge) is that, while Reagan was a political pragmatist, he was also a strict Constitutionalist, and believed that many of society's problems were rooted in the erosion of Constitutional restraints on centralized power in Washington. It is this philosophy that drove his policies, and links him with today's conservative challenge to Obama-- not the liberal camp, as MP would like to claim.

Thanks all. I like it when my parodies bring about activity. Of course releasing mice in a burlesque show has the same effect! ;D

FG: I've long known -- and wondered at -- the perversion of the term "liberal thinker" since the days of the Enlightenment -- John Stuart Mill and many others, as well as Paine. "Liberal", "Liberty" -- same root. Not today, alas!

OMR: That's because the mice all run from the pu-- n/m! ;-D (and thanks for the flattering comparison! -- sheesh!)