“The Soviets shot down a Korean Airliner with 269 passengers, 53 of them Americans, including congressman Larry McDonald. We were due to return to Washington but realized we couldn’t wait. We left on Friday, it was heartbreaking – I had really looked forward to those last three days.” Ronald Reagan from his diary.
That was first term Reagan on vacation in 1983- a 25 day vacation. In 1988 during his second term the US Navy shot down an Iranian passenger airline killing 290 civilians. In that case again Ronald Reagan declined to cut his 4th of July vacation short. End result was we gave the Naval Commander who fired the missile a medal. Can we give Russian separatists a medal for shooting down MH17? No wait, it’s all Putin’s fault. Can we give Putin a medal? After all he is just being strong, fierce and aggressive like we want President Obama to be.
The sweet spot for me in this canonization of Ronald Reagan doing no wrong was embodied by Morning Joe Scarborough just yesterday who so LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY dressed cohost Mika Bresinsky down for telling the truth about this.