As Gov. Scott Walker continues to make the rounds nationally to bolster his viability as a Republican presidential candidate, he’s finally being exposed on a broader level for what he really is: a liar and an idiot. During a January 21st appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Gov. Walker was asked about the importance of foreign policy experience for a presidential candidate. Responding to the question, Gov. Walker told an outright lie about how records showed Ronald Reagan’s decision to fire the nation’s air traffic controllers in 1981 impacted relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Then he turned to Reagan, one of his political heroes, and one of the Republican president’s early acts in office — the mass firing of most of the nation’s air traffic controllers.
In August 1981, after contract talks between the federal government and the union for the controllers stalled, nearly 13,000 controllers walked off the job. Just seven months into his first term, Reagan called the strike illegal and demanded they return to work. When more than 11,000 didn’t, Reagan fired them in what was an unprecedented action.
In his MSNBC interview, Walker asserted that the move was one of the most important foreign policy decisions “made in our lifetime,” showing allies and adversaries around the world “that we were serious.”
Then he added this:
“Years later, documents released from the Soviet Union showed that that exactly was the case. The Soviet Union started treating (Reagan) more seriously once he did something like that. Ideas have to have consequences. And I think (President Barack Obama) has failed mainly because he’s made threats and hasn’t followed through on them.”
Experts contacted by PolitiFact indicated they had never heard of any documents that back up Gov. Walker’s claim, and according to PolitiFact’s report Svetlana Savranskaya, the director of Russia programs at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told PolitiFact she “had to listen to the Walker interview twice, so ridiculous is the statement about the air traffic controllers.”
There’s no doubt the Soviet Union looked with favor on Reagan’s totally despicable act, made even more so because he tried to gain the group’s confidence by saying he had also been a Teamster during his years as actor. The move resulted in many dangerous air traffic events and probably lead to the terrorist idea to use America’s poorly protected air flight systems to attack our country. And relations between the public and the airlines have been poor ever since. Not unrelated to the economic and political results of his “trickle down” economics.
The Russians, however, have been trying to improve the valuable economic effects of incipient democracy in their country and of course will deny any approval of Reagan’s spurious action against the Union.
National Security Advisor Allen: “Reagan’s First Foreign Policy Decision” Many observers saw the PATCO strike primarily through the prism of the Cold War. National Security Adviser Richard V. Allen called it “Reagan’s first foreign policy decision.” Partisan of this view held that the strike played the same role for Regan that the Cuban Missile Crisis had played for John F. Kennedy, providing an opportunity for the president to demonstrate to the Soviet Union his strength under pressure. (Joseph A. McCartin, “Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that changed America”, 10/6/11)
It would seem that PolitiFact needs to get a “Liar Liar, Pants on Fire” rating for this one. Heh.
Did you take over from Dohnal at the WI Conserv Digress or are you simply a Walker campaign operative tasked with lying to people and papering over the truth? Brookfield is ®ight there in the heart of the ®epulsive party stronghold.
Seems the only point I can remember is that Reagan courted PATCO’s support to get elected, made deals and then shit all over them. Nothing to do with an artificial conflation about toughness with the Soviet Union except in the minds of believers that the christ was riding dinosaurs. Just a historical example of ®epressionists as liars for profit and personal power.
So partisans who believe the crap about Reagan strengthening his international stature by lying to PATCO are really deranged enough to want Walker making threats of war and then be carrying them out. That ought to work out really well for all of us still alive after that.
On Edit: I should have added, or are you one of the tools at ®ightWisconsin. Stealing their schtick without crediting your source means you would be them, so-to-speak, and therefore a paid operative as I proposed previously. Plagiarism or just your original work?
The quote is actually from Joseph A. McCartin’s book cited above. Is it your contention that cites should include the bookstore or library where you got the book with the quote cited?
After reading your 1:36 reply, the first thing that came to mind was, “Are there any adults on this thread that can can offer an opinion?”. The second was to explain to you the difference between actual evidence and “as I recall it” supposition. I think I’ll go with the former. Heh.
Nemo, just because a handful of people want to believe that Reagan firing air traffic controllers had a significant impact on the Soviets doesn’t make it true. For Walker’s statement to be true there would have to be documents that show they changed behavior due to this action. Such records do not exist. Walker made that up.
Even besides the lack of evidence it is truly a ridiculous claim. Think about it. You are one of two world powers with enough nukes to end life on the planet and you have control of a huge percentage of the world’s land and you start cowering in fear because the President of the United States fires a bunch of his government’s employees? Seriously? If only we’d known how jumpy the Soviets were we could have ended the cold war 20 years earlier with a few prank phone calls.
House Speaker Tip O’Neill Noted The Soviets Were Impressed With Reagan’s Actions. Indeed, the world did take note of Reagan’s handling of PATCO. When House Speaker Tip O’Neill visited Moscow not long after the PATCO strike, he learned that the Soviet leaders had been deeply impressed by Reagan’s actions. (Joseph A. McCartin, “Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that changed America”, 10/6/11)((I first found this quote at http://www.rightwisconsin.com/ a week ago or so, hope that helps non come to grips with the cite of the cite game he insists on playing))
Former Soviets Say It Was Not The “Evil Empire” Speech But The Photo Of The Air Traffic Controllers Taken To Jail. There was something in Reagan of Sir James Chettam in George Eliot’s Middlemarch — he was puzzled that anybody should ask the reasons for his beliefs, because they seemed to him so clearly reasonable. It was this absolute sense of moral rightness that made him such a drone in private, and such a force in public affairs. (Former Soviet apparatchiks will tell you that it was not his famous “evil empire” speech in 1983 that convinced them he meant strategic business, so much as photographs of the leader of the air traffic controllers union being taken to jail in 1981.) It follows that, apart from the occasional letter like the above-quoted — or an even more extraordinary one to Leonid Brezhnev, which the State Department was too scared to send, dated April 18, 1981 — Reagan’s constant outpouring of rather banal beliefs makes his correspondence dull reading en masse (a French phrase meaning any book that requires elbow support or, in the case of the Skinner/Anderson volume, a truss). One thinks of corn hissing steadily from an Illinois wheat elevator: The golden color is pleasing, the sameness of texture admirable, but — get out of the way before you’re stifled. (Edmund Morris, “White House Correspondent; A lifetime of writing reveals the born proselytizer”, The Washington Post, 9/21/2003)((Again, first found this quote at http://www.rightwisconsin.com/ a week ago or so, but the work was done by Edmund Morris. non, do you need to know the keystrokes used to cut and paste the quote too? heh.))
It’s more than just me, due mostly to the evidence.
You go ahead and keep attempting to pull the focus away from the OP topic of our lying Governor all night if you wish. That’s what you are paid to do. This isn’t about me, it is about Scooter’s aversion to the truth.
Nothing in my above statement is incorrect and you didn’t challenge it. Reagan lied to PATCO to get election endorsements and thus one part of his Reaganomics plan was initiated upon their mass firing, beginning the decimation of the US middle class, in fucking over the unions.
Scooter intents to trash anything that even resembles remnants of the middle class, all for his bosses from whom he hopes he will be handsomely financially rewarded.
I was never implying it is just you cherry-picking talking points for and defending Scooter, there is quite a crew of known and admitted sellouts over at ®ightwing-nutwisconsin.crony/wannabe/getting/paid/more) and eager to prove their loyalty. You claim “evidence,” as many times as you want to.
Tip O’Neill is not quoted as to exactly how the Soviets were impressed by Reagan. Likely Reagan impressed them as a vain fool and in today’s circumstances they would be spitting their vodka all over their keyboards and then ROTFLT(collective)AO.
Doesn’t change the fact reported at the top of the page, Walker is publicly deemed to be a liar, again. (queue the tiny violins)
Beautiful take-down of the troll, Non. Thanks.
OT:
I doubt too many noticed how this person, an ISP owner/operator from Brookfield used the ®Steve alias to complain about supposed deadbeats who don’t pay their internet connection bills over the winter and can’t be disconnected for non-payment until spring, at the open internet thread earlier today.
http://bloggingblue.com/2015/02/fcc-to-propose-strong-net-neutrality-rules/comment-page-1/#comment-146181
Things must be tough even for the rentier class. Scooter hasn’t done enough with improving the economy even for them, so they’ll have to squeeze the poors a bit harder.
A troll who posts regularly on Care 2 uses the ®Steve handle, and it appears to be the very same guy doing the writing – disrupting the discussion, interjecting jabs toward unions, Obama, etc., whether directly pertinent to the article or not. With a nod to the fact that Care 2 is a bit on the edge with its pro-pot, free sex, and almost absurd vegan/PETA theme, they do have some pretty good progressive economic writers. I’m not surprised it has become another target for right wing trolls. Pretty sure it’s the same Individual.
Regarding trolls, I TRY to follow some old sayings or my own:
“Don’t get into a pissing contest with a skunk.”
“Ignore the ignorant.”
“If you reply, they win.”
“Don’t feed the animals.”
“Snakes can’t stay on a straight line either.”
“Only elephants have a bigger dump.”
“Trolls are the offspring of failed used car salesman and an ugly but cheap prostitute, both who vote Republican.”
Some good advice, thanks.
non, The OP was about alleged prevarication by
President(Getting ahead of ourselves) Governor Walker. I’ve given you an orchard of cherries that disproves that slander. You passed back, “Nothing in my above statement is incorrect and you didn’t challenge it.” With regard to that statement; I feel it’s better to let flaccid, sophomoric arguments speak for themselves.Other Gentlemen, I’m not Steve. I don’t live in Brookfield, though I do maintain a residence in Milwaukee. I don’t get paid in any way for posting these comments. I am a semi-retired, opinionated, cum laude CS/ee that loves an open debate and is currently freezing on the north end of beautiful Lake Lucerne in Forest County. I do own a number of domains, some for fun and some to sell to Google in a few years (fingers crossed), but am not an ISP. I’m also the guy that was banished (banished I tells ya!) from a progressive blog (Kay’s Blue Racine) for questioning the left’s commitment to free speech. And Denis once bought me a beer (Guinness, Yum!). I also think that “Phil Scar” and I share 1 degree of separation. The Root River Siren and I had a brief correspondence and I blew her mind, she may know my real name.