It's Called Lying

Ronald Reagan sure is turning out to be a great president. The only thing is, he's not president anymore, in fact, he's not even alive. But dying never hurt anyone's legacy. Now, I do think it's nice to honor our deceased by emphasizing what was good about them in memory, but frankly the homage being paid to this man and revisionism going on about his presidency are ridiculous. The press is heaping a ridiculous amount of praise and doing an amazing job of spinning his recognized bad points. Here is a perfect example from an msnbc piece titled "Reagan: Man of Contradictions?"

In his speech at the 1980 Republican convention, candidate Ronald Reagan announced, "Indeed, it is time our government should go on a diet."

From the very beginning he was a man of contradictions: a deficit cutter who, over eight years, almost tripled the size of the federal budget.

In the 1988 State of the Union address he emphasized the size of a report, "1,153 pages report, weighing 14 pounds."

He engineered the biggest tax cut in history in his first year in office, and then raised taxes every year after.

He promised to eliminate the Education Department, and then let it flourish...

...But perhaps the biggest contradiction in his record was his promise to get tough with terrorists. "Our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution," he announced on Jan. 27, 1981.

Still, when terrorists killed 241 sailors and Marines in their Beirut barracks, Reagan withdrew the troops.

And despite his early denial that he was trading arms for hostages, "Those charges are utterly false," he said on Nov. 13, 1986.

When the Iran-Contra scandal threatened his presidency, he apologized on Mar. 4, 1987: "A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages my heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."

The title of this article is so utterly absurd in relation to the content that it makes me wonder if it was intended to be some kind of ironic rhetorical question. After the title states quizzically, "man of contradictions?" the article goes on to assert "From the very beginning he was a man of contradictions." So why the question mark in the title then? But that's not the best part: Isn't it great how this article spins the everyday phenomenon of a politician lying into sophistication of character? If only all politicians were such men of mystery and contradiction...

Update: The sub-heading states, "His words conflicted with his deeds on many issues." That's a welcome, to the point clarification. Perhaps the article's title is getting at the distinction between contradicting yourself and being a man of contradictions.