The Riddle Circulated In 1980 That Ended The Iranian Embassy Stalemate

The story is told that the incoming Reagan administration, during the transition of 1980 after the election, circulated a riddle aimed at certain sets of ears in Tehran.

It went something like this:

Q: What's flat, dusty, hot, and glows in the dark?

A: Tehran, the day after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated.

Evidently, the riddle circulated sufficiently. Much more went on behind the scenes than just that, of course, but the riddle appears to have played a significant part.

As soon as Reagan was sworn in, the hostages were put on the plane, and flown home. 

'Nuff said? 

How Wars Begin: Argentina Begins To Turn The Screws On The Falklands

The UK doesn't have the resources to defend their islands.

They sold their Harriers to the US Marines.

Obama and Hilary will side with Argentina (and Chavez's Venezuela, by the way).

We miss you, Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Reagan.

In Celebration Of July 4: Reagan's Inaugural Address 1981

No comment needed.



May God bless the United States of America.

Mubarak And Barack O'Reagan Obama Prepare For The GulfStreamMoment

Robert Gibbs, after another testy press briefing, in which he imparts no real information: Uh, Mr. President, The Press, who helped elect you 'cuz you kept preaching about 'transparency', they're, well-uh...pretty pissed that you won't talk to them yourself. You still need them, sir, if you want to keep this gig for another four years. Remember, I'm outta here soon, and can't fend them off for you.

Barry, impatiently: Screw 'em. I'm all they've got. Remember, I'm channeling Reagan now, Time Magazine sez so, 'cuz that's what we told them to say. That was a great shot with the football, wasn't it? Staged to mirror image The Gipper and everything. Damn, I'm good!

Gibbs: Mr. President, the embassy's on the phone from Cairo. They've worn out all the paper shredders, and those incinerators they ordered never arrived. Is it ok to let the local contractor haul all those cables and docs away? They promise to burn them, honest. It's a reputable firm the State Department has used a lot lately, Assange and Associates. Besides the crowd's growing out there, and they're really pissed. The ambassador wants to know where the helicopters are, and can the Marines load their weapons, please. Things went really sour in Tehran when they weren't allowed to shoot back, Mr. President. That's how Carter lost his reelection to Reagan. That and the general ineptitude...

Barry: No, the Marines can't load their weapons, 'cuz they might hurt somebody if they defend the embassy, and how would that make me look? Borrow some shredders from the Brits and the French, and rent a herd of goats to eat the papers. Do I have to think of everything? Tell the ambassador to cool his jets, that Hilary lent the choppers to Bill for one of his weekend socials with Berlusconi, and once they get them cleaned out and the pilots sobered up, they'll be around to fetch him. What's the hurry? Our boy Hosni's in firm control of the situation. Man, didjou see them camels charging the crowd? That'll make the highlight reels fer sure. Our homeboyz even gotta sense of humor! We gotta remember that one for the next time Glenn Beck and his teabaggers show up. Damn!

Gibbs: Uh, Mr. President, Hosni's on the phone. He sez he needs three GulfStreams now: One for him and the fam, one for the harem, and one for the gold reserves and antiquities he's had his boyz loot from the banks and museums during the camel attack. Sez he'll turn truckloads of really interesting docs over to that Assange guy if you don't get him what he wants.

Barry: Call Hilary, tell her to work it out. Hell, call Jimmy Carter! He put Hosni in power--it's his fault, and he keeps bugging me, wanting a 'do-over'.

I'm the next Reagan, and he never got his hands dirty on little stuff! Hell, after Jimmy Carter, all he needed to do was exchange oxygen to look like a hero. Breathe in, breathe out, tilt your head, smile and say 'Well...?'--how come he gets all the love?

Gibbs: Mr. President, HomeboyHosni has another question. Where's his plane gonna land, and Tel-Aviv is not an option. The French don't want him. You can't pay off anybody in the Emirates, they're all rich. Jordan, Yemen, Syria and Tunisia got their own sets of problems, and Riyadh's getting crowded--they've already taken their quota of disgraced Muslim dictators, they said.

Barry: Call Scotland. They like Arab mass-murderers. Yes, it's cold, but they're broke. Hell, call Iceland! They're even broker and colder. That's what a harem is for. He can even learn to like haggis and haddock. Beats being lynched in public. Tell him to stop whining. Anything else, Gibbs?

Gibbs: No, nothing comes to mind. You've got it all under control. The world sure is lucky to have you at the helm, Mr. President.

Barry: Well...?

Creative Vengeance Campaign Continues...

OS just purchased five.

Grin!

Just What We Need, A Rerun Of The Falklands War

Yessiree, let's leave to it Miz Hillary and The One to get it 180 degrees backward.

The US backed a UN resolution this week calling on the UK and Argentina to 'negotiate' over the issue of the 'Malvinas' islands, which is what the Argentinians call the Falklands.

Riiiight...


There's nothing to negotiate. The Falklands are sovereign British territory, and the residents wish to remain British subjects.

End of story. No debate or negotiations needed. Nothing to negotiate.

Unless...you are one of the current crowd in power in Washington, where up is down, darkness is light, and despotism is freedom.

This sort of amoral chicanery ends up getting wars started.

Reagan and Thatcher knew up from down, right from wrong. What is not generally remembered is that the ass-kicking administered by HM Armed Forces against the Argentinians was the precipitating event that upended the military dictatorship in Argentina.

You know, the one with the death squads, torture chambers, and thousands of people simply 'disappeared' without a trace.

Argentina enjoys a bit more freedom, because Thatcher stood tall, and Reagan stood behind her.

Another Memorial Day, With A Much Different President: Reagan's Remarks At Arlington, May 1986

Shared with thanks to the Heritage Foundation, who posted it earlier today.

Note: The President spoke at 10:10 a.m. at the Memorial Amphitheater. Prior to his remarks, he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

---

Citation: John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=37350.
[begin text]

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much.

There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

[end text]

After reading this, one hardly knows what say.

Obama's absence from Arlington today was not only physical.  It was demonstrative of his ethical and spiritual absence from the country he disdains whilst occupying its highest office.

This Memorial Day, we remember those young men and women. And we remember what it felt like to have a patriot in the Oval Office.

“At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”