Obrother

For someone, who, by his own admission "missed the '60s...," Matthew over at 40 Years In The Desert has a very hip analysis of Obama's recent praise for Ronald Reagan. And by "hip" I mean this guy has a clue. He points out astutely that Obama missed the turmoil of the '60s by virtue of being in Hawaii and Jakarta, and that Obama accepts Reagan's view that Big Government was really big and bad and excessive in the '60s, and what was really missing from that decade was clarity, optimism, and dynamic entrepreneurship—all of which were provided by Reagan.

So, to review what Barack Obama believes:
government expenditures in the '60s = bad / Ronald Reagan = good

Let's take a closer look with Matthew Saroff and Phil Gaspar.
Excesses of the '60s:

• Voting Rights Act
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
  
• Medicare
  
• the opening of social welfare programs to people of color

Clarity, optimism, and "a sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship" provided by Reagan:

• fired 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 -- one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century
  
• his vision of deregulation opened up the country for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis
  
• underfunded federal programs dealing with AIDS; believed people suffering and dying from AIDS were punished by God
  
• directed the Department of Agriculture to classify ketchup as a vegetable in September 1981 in an attempt to slash $1.5 billion from the federal school lunch program
• presided over the worst recession since the 1930s
• opposition to civil rights
• spearheaded class warfare on behalf of the rich
  
• supported apartheid in South Africa
• trained and supported terrorists, including the Nicaraguan contras and Islamic radicals in Afghanistan who later formed the al-Qaeda network.

A Democrat who admires the "different path" that Ronald Reagan led the country down—this is inspiring?