Shortcomings

You have to remember that when we vote in the primaries and the general election next November, we'll be electing a president, not a saint or someone infallible. Lord knows conservatives have had their problems with George W. Bush over immirgration, managing the war in Iraq, spending, education, etc. But I've even had issues with Ronald Reagan when he was, dare I say it, less than conservative.

First, Reagan's appointments of Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy are still haunting us today. While O'Connor has since retired, she turned out to be more liberal than most of us would have liked. I was actually quite glad that Ron Paul had the guts at the last GOP debate at the Reagan Library to say he would not appoint a justice like O'Connor while McCain, Romney, and Huckabee fell all over themselves to sell out. As for Kennedy, your never sure what you'll get in any given case. But what do you expect from a "conservative" from California? Unfortunately for Reagan, he did not learn the lessons of his predecessors, namely Eisenhower (Earl Warren) and Nixon (Warren Burger), when it came to appointing justices to the Supreme Court.

Second, Reagan signed into law back in 1986 what essentially amounted to amnesty for illegal aliens. Suffice it to say he and the Congress were duped into thinking that there were only 300,000 illegals in the US at the time but it amounted to a little more than 3 million. The idea at the time being that we'll deal with this illegal problem once and for all by granting them all amnesty. What a mistake? Fast forward to 2006-2007. Is it any wonder that Senator McCain, a self described foot soldier during the Reagan Revolution, tried to grant amnesty to 12-20 million illegals in McCain-Kennedy? Perhaps if Reagan had dealt with the border problem 20 years ago this wouldn't be the issue it is today.

The biggest mistake of the Reagan administration came back in 1983 when he withdrew the Marines from Beirut, Lebanon after their barracks were blown up by terrorists, paving the way for Hezzbullah. Over 200 brave men lost their lives that day. While Reagan thought he was doing the right thing by sparing US lives, withdrawing the Marines emboldened our enemies around the world thinking that we had no taste for blood and we would pickup and withdraw at the first sign of trouble abandoning our commitments around the world. Having Obama and Clinton talk about withdrawal from Iraq only solidifies the terrorists mindset that they can force us to leave or wait us out. Neither course of action is acceptable.

While Geore W. Bush has disappointed conservatives throughout his two terms, there have been moments that have given us hope, namely the appointments of Roberts and Alito to the US Supreme Court and his refusal to withdraw our troops from Iraq. At least in those instances, Bush was more Reagan than Reagan!