By way of an anwer to your comment from my bloglet on the Reagan Record below:

You said:
Jo. Again your graciousness knows no bounds. Yes, Reagan has Alzheimers. That may make him an unknowing twit. What's your excuse. I know if President Jimmy Carter, (You know him; the peace broker known for the hugely successful Oslo accords, as well as the man who kept North Korea a nuke free zone, along with W.J. Clinton of course) were still in office it would be day 8777 of America held hostage.

Tom -
Day 8777? I think not, since I thnk it's been pretty conclusively shown that Reagan/Bush worked to make sure that the hostages would not be freed on Carter's watch.
Sure Jimmy may have had his faults, but at least he made his own efforts and owned up to his failures, unlike the vast majority of republicans today, who blame everything on either Bill Clinton's Penis or the weather. As I have said before, I got a larger increase as a percentage of gross income under Carter when I was in the Navy, than I ever did under either Reagan or Bush. I also had the opportunity to see Reagan and his obnoxious staffers several times when flying them out to different carriers for "visits". Never flew Ronnie, that was the Marines job, Marine One and all from HMX-1, but his staff and the press. Very annoying folks. But that's off topic.

BTW - I was in the Northern IO, off Iran for most of the "Hostage Crisis" as a first tour pilot. I guess if the Day 8777 scenario were true, I'd still be there, since they extended all deployments until the hostages came home/were released. We were out of homeport about 11 months.

Oh yeah and this:

"Americans will never make concessions to terrorists- to do so would only invite more terrorism- once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilised people must pay."

Ronald Reagan, June 18 1985 (p189 Out of Control)

I do not mean to be ungracious, but hey, he is/was a senile twit. (I may be too someday, or maybe you think I am now). It does not diminish any (percieved) accomplishments, nor detract from any positive legacy he may leave. That's for our great-grandchildren to decide. But from my POV, he left 240+ dead Marines in Lebanon, massive debt on the books at the end of the 80's and was an absolutely mediocre-at-best President, who helped empower the current chickenhawk neocons running rampant today.