Reagan's Reign of Error [Paperback]

Mark Green (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; Revised edition (October 12, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394756444
• ISBN-13: 978-0394756448
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #706,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, June 6, 2004

By 

L4d "l4d" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reagan's Reign of Error (Paperback)

Contrary to what our Canadian reviewer below says, this book is not "made up" information about Reagan. These are actual remarks Reagan made; Mark Green explains in fantastic-yet-brief detail just what makes a remark yet another Reagan whopper.

As for greatest President of the 20th century, sorry, but Reagan was one of the worst--he stood by while AIDS became a plague that would take 25,000 American lives during his tenure alone; illegally funded the Contras by selling arms to Iran (and lied about it until the facts wouldn't let him); supported death squads in Central America that committed such noble acts as raping nuns (to which Reagan claimed the rapists were acting in self-defense); poisoning America's political discourse by making it okay to slime and smear opponents at will; making it cool to be a racist again with his "welfare queens" mantra; raping the environment so the rich could get richer; shifting the tax burden mostly to the middle class, who, like idiots, all but thanked him for it; expanding the government into a bigger entity than it had ever been; running up record deficits; removing the Fairness Doctrine from our airwaves and thereby opening them for rabidly partisan hate speech; and--oh yeah--selling biological and chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein.

If you want to know what went wrong with political discourse in America, look no further than Reagan's reign of error.

All of this and more is in Mr. Green's fine collection of quotes-over 160 largish pages of them! I highly recommend this one.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lies Revealed, October 26, 2003

By 

Michael S. Staley "mikess" (Castle Rock, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reagan's Reign of Error (Paperback)

This is a well-documented book on the lies and contridictions of Ronald Reagan. People who love Reagan beware, the truth hurts. Like Reagan says, facts are funny things. This would be a great gift to those people who believe that Reagan could be considered anything more than a terrible President.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars scathing indictment, May 23, 2008

By 

Nostalgic Nerd (MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reagan's Reign of Error (Paperback)

I tend to have more conservative values. In fact, I don't support government intervention of any kind. But I always was dismayed by how the President could say the most contradictory statements to the press and get away with it. As one author said, Reagan's public image had a "godlike" status.

Now I believe it should be made clear that some of the quotes cited in the book do not incriminate Reagan's policies. Tax cuts and trickle-down economics did stimulate the economy into economic prosperity; dismantling of the Soviet Union did remove "an evil empire"; social programs are only possible when the taxpayer is forced, not asked, to give up a percentage of their income, etc. But that shouldn't deter from the fact that the President was intentionally misleading people. Some loyalists might say that Reagan was simply "misspeaking" again, but with some 300 examples cited, it becomes difficult to see them as anything but lies. At times the President blames Carter for things he didn't do, or takes credit for things Carter accomplished. I use to just assume Reagan accomplished all the goods. He even contradicts some of his own conservative policies and statements with socialist policies that he instigated. In the end, using deception to make a wrong policy right, still creates a wrong.

Reagan may go down as one of the greatest ever for his economic boom of the '80s and the dethroning of the Soviet Union, but it was his unchallenged press statements, and the man, as an individual, that leaves his legacy in the dark. It would appear the actor was acting afterall. ("You'd be suprised how much [being] a good actor pays off." -Wash. Post, 5/7/84)