An Overall Perspective On The Reagan Space Legacy

A couple weeks ago I published a eulogy to Ronald Reagan at National Review on line, with respect to his legacy for space. It wasn’t the original piece I submitted–the original submission was longer and more comprehensive in terms of his overall space policy.

The piece that they published was better, partly because it was tighter and more succinct, and partly because, in the interests of the old saying of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, it was uncritical of his failures in space policy.

Now that he’s been interred, and it’s time to reflect on his presidency in its entirety, I’m republishing the original piece here. It will follow when you click on the “read the rest” link (unless you’re coming directly to the permalinked post, in which case it follows after the next couple paragraphs).

I’m prompted to do this for two reasons. First, because it has some perspective on the Reagan space policy that is relevant today, but also because Dwayne Day had a piece at The Space Review today that I think is too kind to Bill Clinton in that regard (and by the way, there are a lot of interesting pieces at that site today, so don’t restrict yourself to that one).

Thus, I’m providing what I hope is a relatively objective perspective of Reagan’s space policy, which was by no means completely laudatory, in anticipation of a similar one on Mr. Clinton’s, which was yet another decade-long setback, and one that the current administration is not addressing in many important ways.

Continue reading An Overall Perspective On The Reagan Space Legacy

What He Said

Thanks, Mindles, for stating better than I could my ongoing frustration with people who assume that I’m a rabid right winger because I don’t agree with rabid left-wing positions. There’s only one part of the post with which I disagree:

Bush never saw a spending bill or entitlement he didn’t like, all small government rhetoric aside.

What “small government rhetoric”? I’ve never heard any.

I had hopes that Bush planned to shrink government, despite his talk about “compassionate conservative,” but it was hope based on faith, not evidence. All I knew was that he would be preferable to Albert Gore Jr.

I also know that he will be better than John F. Kerry.

That is to damn him with faint praise.

But I’m sure that I’ll continue to be lambasted as a right-wing Bush lover.

“The Rush To Mount More”

Mark Steyn has, I think, the definitive review of Bill Clinton’s turgid and overlong autobiography. My favorite bit:

The president appears to have accidentally modified his story and started his relationship with the comely intern several months earlier than he testified to at the time: “During the government shutdown in late 1995,” he writes, “I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions.”

Truly, that is one of the saddest sentences ever written. If I were the big spenders at Knopf, I’d have said: “Look, we understand that a politician with legal difficulties has to say things like ‘inappropriate encounter.’ And, if you want to write a memoir in dead pol-speak, that’s OK, we’ll pay you 20,000 bucks. But for 10 mil do us a favor and lay off the ‘I had an inappropriate encounter’ stuff. Shoot for more of ‘The shaft of light from the dying sun through the Oval Office window caught the swell of her bosom as she slid the extra-large pepperoni across the desk. I knew it was wrong. I’d penciled in that evening for bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but what the hell, the two sides of that troubled island’s sectarian conflict were separated by as deep a divide as the plunging cleavage now beckoning from her low-cut angora sweater. Ulster could wait.'”

“The Rush To Mount More”

Mark Steyn has, I think, the definitive review of Bill Clinton’s turgid and overlong autobiography. My favorite bit:

The president appears to have accidentally modified his story and started his relationship with the comely intern several months earlier than he testified to at the time: “During the government shutdown in late 1995,” he writes, “I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions.”

Truly, that is one of the saddest sentences ever written. If I were the big spenders at Knopf, I’d have said: “Look, we understand that a politician with legal difficulties has to say things like ‘inappropriate encounter.’ And, if you want to write a memoir in dead pol-speak, that’s OK, we’ll pay you 20,000 bucks. But for 10 mil do us a favor and lay off the ‘I had an inappropriate encounter’ stuff. Shoot for more of ‘The shaft of light from the dying sun through the Oval Office window caught the swell of her bosom as she slid the extra-large pepperoni across the desk. I knew it was wrong. I’d penciled in that evening for bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but what the hell, the two sides of that troubled island’s sectarian conflict were separated by as deep a divide as the plunging cleavage now beckoning from her low-cut angora sweater. Ulster could wait.'”

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