So over at National Review, we have a conservative explaining Obama doesn’t do enough to fight the terrible threat of the USSR, and that he needs to adopt a pro-freedom policy of fighting the USSR and other authoritarians just like Ronald Reagan. It’s an impressive job of combining multiple cliches into one:
•Communism/Russia is still the ultimate threat—as you may remember, McCain was freaking out about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2008 and labeling the century’s greatest crisis (so much for 9/11). I seriously doubt many people from Gen X on down are actually shaking in their boots at the fear of the Russian bear, but the conservative base skews old, and a lot of the oldsters are still clinging to the anti-Communism that fueled them so long. So I’m sure the NR piece burnishes the author’s credentials.
•Ronald Reagan was the voice of freedom! Which ignores, as Roy Edroso notes at the link, that he supported countless right-wing butchers including Saddam Hussein, the Afghani extremists who became the Taliban and the dicatorship running El Salvador; all that mattered was that they weren’t Communist dictatorships. Not that he was any different from other presidents past or future in this, but it’s still worth pointing out. The best thing Reagan did for the world was actually negotiating with the USSR, which at the time was condemned by conservatives as selling out, betraying America, appeasement.
•We can never spend enough on the security nanny state.
