Since Ron Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, would probably be the first to admit his political view are widely divergent from his father’s it seems strange that he would put words in the Gipper’s mouth about current events.
However, the younger Reagan spoke for his father on HLN’s Jan. 26 “The Joy Behar Show.” Host Joy Behar asked Reagan what his father would have thought about the modern tea party movement.
“What would your father say about these tea partiers Ron, do you think?” Behar asked.
According Reagan, his father, a conservative icon wouldn’t have looked upon them favorably and he cited “Hitler signs” as why. However, the signs that show Barack Obama as Hitler paraded out on MSNBC every time the network does a tea party segment often come from supporters of Lyndon LaRouche [1], a left-wing fanatic.
“Oh, I think he would be unamused by the tea partiers with their Hitler signs and all the rest of it. No, I don’t think he’d be cottoning to that much at all,” Reagan replied.
Ron Reagan would do his father’s legacy a service if he went back and looked at some of his father’s earlier writings. In the Dec. 7, 1973 issue of National Review [2], the elder Reagan wrote of a similar movement against taxes that resulted in election shakeups throughout the country that year. And also, some credit the Proposition 13 tax rebellion of 1978 in California [3], often likened to the tea party movement, as one of the reason Reagan was catapulted into the presidency.
Instead, the president’s son deemed it necessary to take a few parting shots at some prominent Republicans, despite the prospects of those same Republicans leading them to victories at the ballot box later this year.
“As much as we’re ringing our hands about the Democratic Party though and it’s all well that we do that, we have to remember that the alternative, the Republicans are a true train wreck -- a train wreck,” Reagan said. “Look at Sarah Palin. Look at Scott Brown. You know.”
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