It seems that TIME magazine does everything it can to capitalize on trending popularity, truth be damned. And thanks to a rising tide of conservatism in this country and the fact that the magazine is pot-committed to the Obama administration, they’ve stooped to a new low with their latest cover, “Why Obama [Heart] Reagan,” which shows smiling images of each president enjoying a friendly embrace.
Obviously, this is meant to capture the attention of young liberals that love Barack Obama, and validate their suspicions that he desperately seeks bi-partisanship with Republicans. Perhaps TIME expects that young liberals will buy just about anything if it’s said in the right tenor and from the right pulpit, and given the fact that a relatively unknown community organizer and junior senator became president on the wave of popularity among this group, I can’t say I blame them. But as far as older liberals and all conservatives, it’s amazing that TIME could have thought they could get this one by the goalie. It is nothing less than an insult to our intelligence, so inarguably untrue that it could only be the result of deliberate fabrication or the innocent result of the TIME editors' stupidity.
Any sane person could go on for hours about the differences between the two. Obama is a proponent of expansive and powerful government, while Reagan viewed such a government as the most dangerous threat to American liberty, and particularly when it comes to the healthcare industry that Obama just consigned to federal administration. Reagan believed America had a responsibility to foster the notion of individual freedoms and limited government by globally exercising "leadership through strength," whereas Barack Obama believes that he should bow to foreign diplomats and apologize for America’s arrogance by quietly homogenizing our position with the rest of the globe.
The two could not be any more different, and even if Obama did "learn" something from Reagan as this cover implies, there is not one shred of evidence that he implemented any of it. If TIME really wanted to correlate Obama with a figure of the late twentieth century, and if the magazine had an ounce of integrity, that cover would have read, “Why Obama [Heart] Carter.” It would be far more believable, and Americans would not have to look past the crisis in Egypt to see the parallel. Both have vocally demonized American-friendly regimes as “enemies of the people,” and both have effectively opened the door to allow fundamental Islamic theocracies to take power in opposition to Western freedoms and Israel.
William Sullivan
Obviously, this is meant to capture the attention of young liberals that love Barack Obama, and validate their suspicions that he desperately seeks bi-partisanship with Republicans. Perhaps TIME expects that young liberals will buy just about anything if it’s said in the right tenor and from the right pulpit, and given the fact that a relatively unknown community organizer and junior senator became president on the wave of popularity among this group, I can’t say I blame them. But as far as older liberals and all conservatives, it’s amazing that TIME could have thought they could get this one by the goalie. It is nothing less than an insult to our intelligence, so inarguably untrue that it could only be the result of deliberate fabrication or the innocent result of the TIME editors' stupidity.
Any sane person could go on for hours about the differences between the two. Obama is a proponent of expansive and powerful government, while Reagan viewed such a government as the most dangerous threat to American liberty, and particularly when it comes to the healthcare industry that Obama just consigned to federal administration. Reagan believed America had a responsibility to foster the notion of individual freedoms and limited government by globally exercising "leadership through strength," whereas Barack Obama believes that he should bow to foreign diplomats and apologize for America’s arrogance by quietly homogenizing our position with the rest of the globe.
The two could not be any more different, and even if Obama did "learn" something from Reagan as this cover implies, there is not one shred of evidence that he implemented any of it. If TIME really wanted to correlate Obama with a figure of the late twentieth century, and if the magazine had an ounce of integrity, that cover would have read, “Why Obama [Heart] Carter.” It would be far more believable, and Americans would not have to look past the crisis in Egypt to see the parallel. Both have vocally demonized American-friendly regimes as “enemies of the people,” and both have effectively opened the door to allow fundamental Islamic theocracies to take power in opposition to Western freedoms and Israel.
William Sullivan
