Another Republican Coward

Former Florida Governor and once Presidential hopeful (until George W. put a stake through the heart of the Bush name) Jeb Bush, was recently in the news doing what some would describe was "standing up" to Grover Norquist and his ridiculous tax pledge...

“If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we’re going to have 10 dollars of spending cuts for one dollar of revenue enhancement – put me in coach,” Bush told the House Budget Committee. “That would be wonderful. Let’s see it. That’d be spectacular.”

A week later he posited that today's GOP would have been too extreme for his father, George H.W., as well as invoking St. Ronald's name.

"Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad – they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party – and I don't – as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground," Bush said, according to the website Buzzfeed... 

..."Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan suport," he said. Reagan "would be criticized for doing the things that he did."

But all it took was a little bitchslapping from Norquist to set Jeb back in line and blame partisanship on... you guessed it, President Obama. This despite the fact that unless you've been living under a rock for the last three and a half years to completely miss the overt musings of GOP leaders making an Obama election loss their primary goal, you'd know who was trying to "find common ground" and seek bipartisanship, and who was flipping the bird at compromise.

Earlier Tuesday, Bush used Twitter to say his remarks were taken out of context. He told the AP that he was talking about partisanship in Congress as a whole.

"Both parties are at fault. Rep. Paul Ryan is one of the few who has shown courage. He proposed a well thought-out budget as a starting place for real discussions," Bush told the AP.

"What was he met with - incredible criticism from both parties. But, I hold Democrats more accountable because they control two of the three offices - president & Senate. Over the last four years, they have had multiple opportunities and have opted to take the politically expedient route over working together to find a policy solution."...

..."I don't believe it's a party that doesn't allow for disagreement among members - but that is often what it sounds like," he said.

A spine! A spine! My kingdom for a Republican with a spine!

Eric Cantor Reveals His Phoniness

What a way to ring in the New Year!

If you watched 60 Minutes Sunday evening, you treated yourself to a "Get to know the real Eric Cantor" propaganda interview conducted by Lesley Stahl. In it, Cantor wanted to show you his personal side, complete with the family portrait, faded photos of the young couple soon to be Mr. & Mrs. Cantor in love, and a few tidbits of information courtesy of Cantor's son. He likes rap music, like JayZ and Lil' Wayne. (...Yeah, right.)

What turned out to be a complete sabotage and revealed Cantor to be a fraud was when Stahl asked Cantor about compromising, just as his "hero" Ronald Reagan had to do on occasion.



Who else was just as shocked as I was when hearing Cantor's press secretary yelling from off camera to dispute the fact, THE FACT, that Ronald Reagan actually raised taxes during his presidency? He exposed Cantor for the fraud we all know he is on national television. Did he think that 60 Minutes would edit that section out of the piece?! An interview at Cantor's home with his wife at his side, and his press secretary hanging on every word and making sure they don't violate Lord Norquist. Even Weeper Boehner came across better in his 60 Minute interview.

Must See Interview

It's amazing how sharp former President Jimmy Carter still is at 86 years young. This interview is a must see just for the realization of how underrated and under appreciated Carter was and still is. His demonization by the right is shameful.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'll update with the added video as it becomes available.

Charles Krauthammer Is Missing Something

Today's op-ed from Charles Krauthammer has one craaaazy headline: Call Obama's Bluff

Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation?

Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear.

Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.

Now obviously, when in the course of negotiations, it's a pretty dumb idea to float your ideas in public as far as specifics are concerned. And of course, Mr. Krauthammer knows this - surely he's not that stupid. He's just trying to shoehorn his perspective into his piece. But apparently, Mr. Krauthammer hasn't been listening when it comes to statements in public.

Obama signaled at his press conference today that changes to Social Security could be a bargaining chip in a deficit reduction deal with Republicans – something many Democrats have staunchly opposed.

“The reason to do Social Security is to strengthen Social Security to make sure that those benefits are there for seniors in the out-years,” Obama said. “ And the reason to include that potentially in this package is if you’re going to take a bunch of tough votes, you might as well do it now, as opposed to trying to muster up the political will to get something done further down in the future.”

There's your public statement, Mr. Krauthammer, right in the middle of a news conference, for which the President has taken a barrage of hits from the fringe left that would rather primary him, to the Democratic members of the House. But no matter. He continues:

The Republicans are being totally outmaneuvered. The House speaker appears disoriented. It’s time to act. Time to call Obama’s bluff.

A long-term deal or nothing? The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500 billion containing $500 billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.

Well, President Obama has already stated he will accept no short-term deal. The time for that passed, by Mr. Krauthammer's calculation, about 5 months ago. And his premise sits on the notion that the GOP would work in good faith to "work on something larger" and not use the borrowed time to drag their feet until the next debt ceiling increase vote all the way to November, 2012. Past performance has dictated such an outcome. But let's see what Mr. Krauthammer's proposal on "something larger" is:

Republicans should call for urgent negotiations on tax reform along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles commission that, in one option, strips out annually $1.1 trillion of deductions, credits and loopholes while lowering tax rates across the board to a top rate of 23 percent. The president says he wants tax reform, doesn’t he? Well, Mr. President, here are five months to do so.

And that's where Mr. Krauthammer's fist shaking falls apart. He is still under the impression that the Republicans are actually serious about debt reduction.

From the very beginning the Republican negotiators have stated unequivocally that any revenue increase is  a non-starter, including closing tax loopholes, streamlining deductions and even an expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Krauthammer assumes the Republicans will automatically change their mind if only that stubborn, mule-headed Obama would accept a short-term deal to work out the kinks of these reforms in the meantime. ...Please...

And taking a jab at the President as a "born-again budget balancer" when St. Ronnie tripled the debt and George W. Bush doubled it in their respective terms in office is just comical. Look at your own party's White House leadership history when it comes to deficit spending, Mr. Krauthammer. Don't try crying crocodile tears now.

Krauthammer ignores the fact that the supposed leader of these negotiations on the GOP side, House Speaker John Boehner, doesn't even have full support of his own members, where somewhere between 60 and 70 Tea Party House members have stated they wouldn't vote for a debt ceiling increase under ANY circumstances, which means Boehner needs Democratic votes in order to pass ANYTHING. To get those votes he needs to make it palatable. It's called "compromise." So please spare me the Republican superiority. The current crop of Krauthammer's party are the ones who decided to tie spending cuts to the debt ceiling increase in the first place. To cry foul now and project that it's President Obama who is holding the debt ceiling hostage is completely preposterous.

And then he ends with this kicker:

If conservatives really want to get the nation’s spending under control, the only way is to win the presidency. Put the question to the country and let the people decide. To seriously jeopardize the election now in pursuit of a long-term, small-government, Ryan-like reform that is inherently unreachable without control of the White House may be good for the soul. But it could very well wreck the cause.

Ah, the cause. Not to save the economy, but to win back the White House. So ultimately, Krauthammer's suggestion of calling the president's bluff is a political ploy to implode the economy in order to gain traction in winning back the Presidency, apparently not aware of polls showing that if there is a US default, the American people will blame the Republicans in Congress before the only adult in the room occupying the White House. How will that bode for the 2012 elections up and down ticket? It is to laugh.

Mike Huckabee's Revisionist History Lesson

[Mike] Huckabee has launched a new educational company called Learn Our History that aims to get kids excited about studying the nation's past.

...The first volume in the series highlights the Reagan era, where the characters experience the 1980 presidential election and President Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech in Berlin.

The cartoon features some amusing and sometimes alarming retrospective of how things went down. In a clip, the teenagers encounter on the streets of Washington a dark-skinned mugger clad in a "Disco" muscle shirt and armed with a knife, demanding money. Other scenes of violence unfold before Reagan appears like a white knight with a message of hope and optimism.

...You know, because that's exactly how it all went down.



I can't wait for these future installments:

~ Native American Genocide
~ American Slavery
~ Japanese Internment During World War II

...and who can forget:
~ The Iran-Contra Affair

Quote of the Day

"When it comes to the market economy, I am a realist. I understand that, compared to a nation of farmers and artisans, a market economy--especially under free trade, jobs offshoring globalism--subjects people to massive economic insecurity and requires a strong social safety net. The idea that Republicans are espousing that the social safety net can be sacrificed in the name of deficit reduction in order to pay for wars of hegemony is insane, inhumane, and evil.

Such Republicans have nothing in common with President Reagan."

~ Paul Craig Roberts, American economist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics.

Wow. When the founder of Reaganomics is not on your side, it's not a good day for the GOP.

But Roberts doesn't stop there. He also criticizes the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and our collective hypocrisy in Libya.

"Here we are, we're all concerned about humanitarian concerns in Libya, after we've wrecked two countries ourselves?... In Iraq, there were huge numbers of people dead and dispossessed, with no place to go. But none of that bothered us. When we're doing it, it's quite all right."

...And Roberts can't forget how the George W. Bush administration used deception to take the country into those wars in the first place -- in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban had not attacked the United States, and then in Iraq, on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"Lies," said Roberts, "and the bastards knew it."

Rush Limbaugh is a Moron Too

The King of Conservatives, the Overlord of Oxycontin, the Viscount of Illegal Viagra, Rush Limbaugh was caught off guard and completely stumped when a caller challenged him and asked why former President Ronald Reagan, who was pro-amnesty, raised taxes eleven times, "cut and ran" from Lebanon and negotiated with terrorists, is considered a Conservative hero.

Limbaugh was dumbfounded - he stuttered, he stammered, he froze - and the only thing he could come up with was to question the "silly notion" that Reagan raised taxes, the most obvious and provable of the caller's accusations.



Well, I suppose to keep one's ample ass in comfort, one has to keep pulling the wool over the rubes' eyes.

Why Does Sarah Palin and the Republican Party Hate Ronald Reagan?

The current crazy crop of the GOP is a harvest for Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. They can fill hours upon hours of broadcasting just covering the insanity coming from the pieholes of these nitwits.



Absolutely no sense of history, these yokels. And they are elected representatives. It makes me sad for my country knowing there are soooo many that can be so easily duped.

Can I Go Home Yet?

In Ohio for the holidays.



Ugh. I did see a "I Miss Reagan" bumper sticker yesterday. Wanted to ask the driver of the Chevy Tahoe if he missed the 50% income tax rate back then as well.

Ronald Reagan Fails Ronald Reagan Test

Oh, the dangers of revisionist history.

The RNC has proposed a resolution, a limtus test, a "purity" test to deny any funding to GOP candidates didn't agree with 80% of their 10 point list of Republican principles. Why 80%? Because their icon, Ronald Reagan said that anyone who agreed with him 80% of the time was his "friend." The problem? Ronald Reagan would have failed in 6 of their 10 points.

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Oh what fools these Republicans be.

Tweet of the Day

St. Ron Got It Right...

... at the UN Convention in 1984. And yet we're now hearing Ronald Reagan's party arguing for the use of torture. There is no debate. America does not torture.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

The Right Wing Noise Machine Continues

So not only is the push for the situation we're in being characterized as the "Obama Recession," now we have wingnuts like Mary Matalin claiming that the Reagan 1981 recession was worse and for that matter, so was the Bush 2001 recession.

MATALIN: I don’t want to say I’m panic-free... but I do have the perspective we’ve been through worse. Reagan had a worse recession, and arguably George W. Bush, I was there in that pre-9/11. We inherited a recession. We acted quickly, and the recession, in combination with 9/11, was shallow and short, and we went on to have 52 months of consecutive growth. I’m not doing talking points here.

Nice qualifier, huh? "I'm not doing talking points here." Except for the "we inherited a recession" part and the "52 months of consecutive job growth" part.

Well, Matalin must have not seen February's 651,000 job losses which officially puts us at a deeper loss than the '81-'82 recession. And do I need to remind anyone that we weren't in a 18 month nose dive when Bush took office, nor was 9/11 to blame for the mild (in comparison) recession Bush oversaw which started in March of 2001?

(Chart from TIME Online)

That brown line, which only shows losses through December 2007, is the current recession as opposed to the Bush recession shown by the orange line. In fact, this chart also shows that every other recession was deeper and recovered faster than that of Bush's two term clusterfuck.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Mary Matalin/James Carville household.

(H/T Think Progress)

Music Break! Ben Folds Five Reunion

I need a political break. My mind if fried. I can't stand listening to Palin and McCain, who at this very moment is blaming the Democrats and Obama for the alternative minimum tax. For years, the Republicans have blocked legislation to raise the ceiling on the AMT and now more than 30 million people are whacked by it every April 15th. In fact, it was the Reagan administration that fucked it all up ot begin with. Yeah, that's right. The great Ronald Reagan.

And now that wrinkly assed douchebag is now laying it on the feet of the Dems and Obama?! Fuck you, McCain. I can't wait for you to fade into oblivion. Just 11 more days. Old soldiers never die, they just sit on one of their seven front porches yelling at kids to get off their lawn.

I need a music break.

MySpace is doing these cool "front to back" concerts asking bands to play a whole album in order. Ben Folds is one of my favorites. If you have a spare 53 minutes, enjoy "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner."

Ben Folds Five - MySpace Front To Back concert

Another Smear E-mail: Democrats Kill More Soldiers

Ok, this is a good one. My friend sent me this email he received from a relative who was doubting its validity and forwarded it to me since he knows I've been checking these things out lately. But this one is a doooooozy!

The e-mail claims that you'll be shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU!, at the statistics of US military losses by any cause. And that's the kicker. ANY CAUSE. But let's play their little game. Here's part of the e-mail:

Military Losses, 1980 thru 2007

Whatever your politics, however you lean, and however you feel about the current administration, this report should open some eyes. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006 - by any cause.

1980 .......... 2,392 (Carter Year)
1981 .......... 2,380 (Reagan Year)
1984 .......... 1,999 (Reagan Year)
1988 .......... 1,819 (Reagan Year)
1989 .......... 1,636 (George H W Year)
1990 .......... 1,508 (George H W Year)
1991 .......... 1,787 (George H W Year)
1992 .......... 1,293 (George H W Year)
1993 .......... 1,213 (Clinton Year)
1994 .......... 1,075 (Clinton Year)
1995 .......... 2,465 (Clinton Year)
1996 .......... 2,318 (Clinton Year)
1997 ............ 817 (Clinton Year)
1998 .......... 2,252 (Clinton Year)
1999 .......... 1,984 (Clinton Year)
2000 ...........1,983 (Clinton Year)
2001 ............ 890 (George W Year)
2002 .......... 1,007 (George W Year)
2003 .......... 1,410 (George W Year)
2004 .......... 1,887 (George W Year)
2005 ............ 919 (George W Year)
2006............. 920 (George W Year)
2007............. 899 (George W Year)

Clinton years (1993-2000): 14,107 deaths
George W years (2001-2007): 7,932 deaths

Well, that seems interesting doesn't it? And some would wonder how this can possibly be? The answer: because it's a lie.

If you Google the title of the list "Military Losses 1980-2007," the first site you come to is FreeRepublic.com, a right wing website and a post titled "VERY Surprising Military Death Statistics, 1980 - 2007". The e-mail is basically a cut and paste of this webpage with a little added commentary to force a false discussion and skew it towards a neoconservative viewpoint.

What these imbeciles hope to accomplish is that all these "amazing" statistics will be so shocking to you that you'll just forward the e-mail in disbelief. After all, if they provide a link to the stats that they're using, then there's no need to double check, right? ... Right?

Take a look at the list again. Why is 1982-83, and 1985-87 missing from the list? Maybe this line in the in the e-mail will give us a clue:

"And, I was even more shocked when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize winner) Jimmy Carter , there were 2,392 US military fatalities! From what? How?"

Well, as in most hazardous jobs around the country and around the world, there's a little something called "accidents" that people deal with in their daily lives. Here's the listing of the reasons for 1980's casualties:

Accident: 1,556
Homicide: 174
Illness: 419
Self inflicted: 231 (I'm guessing this one is suicide or it would be listed as accidental.)
Terrorist Attack: 1
Undetermined: 11

That's how President "Nobel Peace Prize" Carter ended his "reign" - with one soldier's death caused by a terrorist attack.

Now let's look at the missing Reagan years:

1982 - 2,319 Deaths, 1,495 accidental
1983 - 2,465 Deaths, 1,413 accidental
1985 - 2,252 Deaths, 1,476 accidental
1986 - 1,984 Deaths, 1,199 accidental
1987 - 1,983 Deaths, 1,172 accidental

All these numbers show that Carter's 1980 number is not an anomaly, it's the average. But let's take a look at another breakdown - during Reagan's years the number of military deaths by hostile action was 58. The number of deaths by terrorist attack was 293.

Since the author of this e-mail took the added measure of comparing Bush's numbers to Clinton's, let's look at the ACTUAL numbers taken from the link provided by the very creator of this e-mail. Here are the discrepancies:

Clinton's years -
1993 - Author's Number 1,213
1994 - Author's Number 1,075
1995 - Author's Number 2,465 -- Actual Number 1,040
1996 - Author's Number 2,318 -- Actual Number 974
1997 - Author's Number 817
1998 - Author's Number 2,252 -- Actual Number 827
1999 - Author's Number 1,984 -- Actual Number 796
2000 - Author's Number 1,983 -- Actual Number 758


That makes Bill Clinton's grand total 7,500.


Now let's take a look at George W. Bush's numbers according to the author's own link:

2001 - Author's Number 890 -- Actual Number 891
2002 - Author's Number 1,007 -- Actual Number 999
2003 - Author's Number 1,410 -- Actual Number 1,228
2004 - Author's Number 1,887 -- Actual Number 1,874
2005 - Author's Number 919 -- Actual Number 1,942
2006 - Author's Number 920 -- Actual Number 1,858
2007 - Author's Number 899 -- Actual Number not listed in link as it ends in 2006.

The Pentagon has not released figures for 2007 yet, but according to other sources, the US casualty rate for 2007 was 1, 014.


So Clinton's EIGHT (1993-2000) year total =7,500
George W. Bush's SEVEN year (2001-2007) total = 9,804
And 2008 seems like a very long year.

By the way, here are Reagan's and GHW Bush's totals:

Reagan's EIGHT year (1981-1988) total = 17,201
George HW Bush FOUR year (1989-1992) total = 6,223


Military deaths under the eight years Clinton Administration caused by hostile action or terrorist attack = 76

Military deaths under the six years (2001-2006) GW Bush Administration caused by hostile action or terrorist attack = 2,658

Further research shows that this e-mail is not so new. It's probably been circulating for about a year and a half. Here are the Snopes.com and Urban Legends debunking of the numbers, similar to what I did above.

The kicker is one of the final statements toward the end of the e-mail:

I hope that during the time between now and November, intelligent Americans can decipher: the facts from the spin, the spinners from the leaders, those who seek even more power from those that seek justice, and the dividers from the uniters.

Over the next months let's be good listeners and see and hear who tries to divide our nation; and who wants to unite our nation. Who wants to control how our money is spent and who wants our money spent the way we would spend it. Who seeks power and who seeks justice? Who spins the facts and who is genuine.

With that statement I couldn't agree more. All that needed to be done was about 10 minutes worth of research to see that these numbers are false, skewed to favor partisan politics and ultimately and unfortunately an abomination and an insult to those that have lost their lives doing what they've been told to do and defending what they believe in.

So please, do what the author says - but don't just listen to what our candidates for President have to say, follow it up with some research of your own from credible sources. I know you'll be surprised by what you find.

Fiscal Conservatives

(H/T C&L)

The McCain-Reagan Comparison

The American Spectator: John McCain, although he has failed to toe the line of conservative orthodoxy, has many of the characteristics that the American people admired in Ronald Reagan, including the key elements that made him a successful president. In fact, given his electability, McCain offers a rare chance for conservatives to recapture the essence of the Reagan revolution.

MyDD: ...can McCain coalesce the Reagan coalition?

Boston Globe: ...McCain is trying, in many ways, to run as Reagan redux. McCain's most frequent theme is that he is trying to ''build bridges'' much the way the former president and California governor did.

If you surf long enough, you'll find all kinds of whackos spouting the argument and comparing John McCain to Ronald Reagan in a desperate attempt to try and convince the right wing that the general election in 2008 is not lost. Look! We have a new Ronnie!

But then you would have to think of this:

Lowell "Bud" Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Mr. Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Mr. Paxson's behalf.

..McCain attorney Robert Bennett played down the contradiction between the campaign's written answer and Mr. Paxson's recollection.

"We understood that he [Mr. McCain] did not speak directly with him [Mr. Paxson]. Now, it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" Mr. Bennett said.

The difference would be denying McCain met Paxson (a lie) or admitting they met (the truth).

How about the incident regarding conservative Bill Cunningham firing up the crowd at a McCain rally by using Obama's middle name repeatedly?

McCain denied ever meeting Cunningham before, saying "I will certainly make sure nothing like that happens again." But Cunningham told CNN he met McCain twice before, including with former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine at Kenwood Country Club. "John McCain is developing -- maybe because of his advance in years -- a bad memory,'' Cunningham said.

This was followed with a "oh, maybe we did meet" response. Well, the only comparison I see beside the obvious one that both doddering old fools have been and would be awful presidents is that perhaps McCain is starting to suffer the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. What else could explain his horrible memory? It would be nice if he could remember the names of foreign dignitaries should the unthinkable happens and he were to win the Oval Office.

McCain Wins Florida - Rudy's Out

While announcing and analyzing McCain's win in Florida, MSNBC and others confirm with two separate sources that Rudy Giuliani will drop out of the race tomorrow and endorse John McCain at the Reagan Library. Talk about irony! Is this a good thing for McCain?

...given Rudy's stands on abortion, guns and gay rights, his endorsement of McCain would also add some ballast to Romney's central argument going forward -- that of the two remaining contenders for the GOP nomination, he is the more conservative.

Looks like we won't have Rudy Giuliani to kick around anymore... and it was becoming one of my favorite pastimes.

As of this writing, Hillary Clinton has won the raw vote over Barack Obama in Florida, but no delegates were awarded due to the stripping of Florida's delegates after breaking party rules and holding their primary early.

Although Michigan (which is in the same boat) and Florida have been stripped of delegates, the Clinton campaign is challenging the Democratic National Committee's ruling.

"Nothing has changed," a party source said. "Florida will still have zero delegates. The party has booked no rooms for them at the convention."

Op-Ed Death Match Continues

Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher continues the updates of the editorial sparring match between David Brooks, Paul Krugman & Bob Herbert. Lou Cannon now enters the steel cage.

The Reagan Pundit Wars

Rachel Maddow's show started off with a good topic today.

The subject: Paul Krugman's new book, "Conscience of a Liberal" and how it has started a string of right wing attacks on Krugman, especially from David Brooks, for daring to criticize Ronald Reagan. Yes, that right wing diety, Ronald Reagan.

Brooks: Today, I’m going to write about a slur. It’s a distortion that’s been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months...

The distortion concerns a speech Ronald Reagan gave during the 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., which is where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier. An increasing number of left-wing commentators assert that Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign with a states’ rights speech in Philadelphia to send a signal to white racists that he was on their side. The speech is taken as proof that the Republican majority was built on racism.

The truth is more complicated.

Paul Krugman then fires back. Now remember that these men work for the same newspaper, so it's pretty rare that op-eds in the same paper take swipes at each other.

Krugman: So there's a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon's Southern strategy. When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that 'I believe in states' rights,' he didn't mean to signal support for white racists. It was all just an innocent mistake.

Indeed, you do really have to feel sorry for Reagan. He just kept making those innocent mistakes.

But was Reagan a racist or does Brooks have it right in saying it is blown out of proportion? Here's Bob Herbert, another op-ed columnist from the same paper!

Herbert: Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew. ...

...And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

Congress overrode the veto.

Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too.

So was Reagan a racist? In the meantime, what are all those GOP primary candidates going to do? Keep echoing Reagan's name at every debate as the great leader they think he was or shy away from St. Ronald of the Right Wing?

Timothy Noah at Slate has a more complete history of the feud.