A Quote by Douglas Brinkley

One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people. — © Douglas Brinkley
One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people.
One more item for the delusional Miss Grundys still obtusely citing Reagan as their model of “niceness”: As governor of California, Reagan gave student protesters at Berkeley the finger. Remember that next time you ask yourself: “What would Reagan do?” People who are afraid of ideas whitewash Reagan like they whitewash Jesus. Sorry to break it to you, but the Reagan era did not consist of eight years of Reagan joking about his naps.
Ronald Reagan got a lot of democrats. I wish he hadn`t. I got to Congress with Reagan coming to the Whitehouse. The Reagan Program, a very radical one, a very drastic one passed because he had a lot of democrats. He worked at it personally and also because Reagan retained a popularity.
It may be hard to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980's and because of both Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan - in particular Mrs Reagan - we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it. Something that I really appreciate was her very effective but low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience, and people began to say "hey we have to do something about this too.
I wonder if these people today would think Reagan was a Reagan conservative.
Reagan has been deified by the Republican Party, which is odd. The Reagan that modern Republicans revere is not the real Reagan.
Even if people aren't Republicans, it doesn't seem shocking to them that Ronald Reagan was the president. Well of course, because Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor! This is not only a bar too low, this is no bar at all. I don't care who you are, you know 20 people smarter than Ronald Reagan. You know 20 people who would be a better president than Ronald Reagan.
Reagan loved and respected his father, Jack Reagan. But if there was a father figure to Reagan in the religious sense, it was Ben Cleaver. What Reagan's father didn't provide spiritually, from a fatherly point of view, Cleaver did.
It was simply impossible to support Carter for reelection in 1980 and easy for me to support Reagan. The Reagan campaign was happy to have Democratic support, and the Reagan administration was happy to have Democrats in it; they took the view that, after all, Reagan himself had been a Democrat, so it was not a strike against you.
During Ronald Reagan's administration, '60 Minutes' ran a segment about the difference between Reagan's rhetoric and Reagan's actions. The show thought it had produced a hard-hitting piece; Reagan's team called up '60 Minutes' to thank them for the 15-minute commercial.
Ronald Reagan was the best Ronald Reagan ever, and Ronald Reagan was a cool guy. You're not Ronald Reagan. You can't run as him; you can't relive his career. You can't just have somebody else's career. You have to be you.
Nancy Reagan sort of downplayed that, you know - but she was quite successful. At the time she married Ronald Reagan, I think she was keenly aware that [Reagan's first wife] Jane Wyman's career had eclipsed Ronald Reagan's, so she was very determined not to have that happen.
Humor is a marvelous communications tool, as Reagan has demonstrated so well. He has weathered many a storm that others might not have. With Reagan, people just say, 'There he goes again.' A sense of humor allows a president to back off a little from the tensions of the moment and take a calmer view of things.
Back in 1980, the conservative movement was all-in for Ronald Reagan. Once Reagan won, they all wanted to be on the team. It was a landslide. Everybody wants to bask in that glow. And then as the Reagan years began, then the Republicans, certain members of the party began to individually fall out and start talking about problems they had, secretly telling the media they thought Reagan was a dunce and a danger to world peace, adopting the Democrat line that Reagan's finger on the nuclear button couldn't be trusted.
My feeling is that it's a misreading of history to say that, as the Reagan supporters do, that Reagan won the Cold War.
In 1980, evangelicals overwhelmingly elected a candidate who was a known womanizer when he was in Hollywood. He would be the first divorced president in U.S. history. His name was Ronald Reagan. And when evangelicals voted for Reagan, they weren't endorsing womanizing. They weren't endorsing divorce. They were endorsing Reagan's policies.
You are Mrs. Reagan because Mr. Reagan loves you with all his heart.
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