And those reagantards just wiped their muddy shoes all over him. Laughed at him. Sneered at him. Trash-talked him.
And he turned out to be spot-on - and still is.
When Carter's Presidency ended, he went on to found the Carter Center, working for the greater good. He went on to building houses for the homeless, promoting Habitat for Humanity and literally putting that institution on the map. He earned recognition and immensely high standing internationally as a continuing advocate for human rights (which he made a hallmark of his Presidency, and put that phrase into common usage), and became THE bastion of ethics and true morals. Hell, he was called upon to be a UN observer in elections across the globe, to make sure things were legitimate and totally kosher in their operations. And that was only part of it.
When reagan's time was up (MUCH too late, in my opinion), he went off to embark upon the "mashed potato circuit" of pricey speeches (the Japanese paid him a cool two million dollars for his first speech out of the gate) - and shortly thereafter packed it in because by then he was severely afflicted with "mashed potato brains."
I always felt that was poetic justice for this particular beast. To have lived the life he led (which in anybody's estimation was a freakin' spectacular life, almost abnormally spectacular - Hollywood, big-money sponsorships and salesmanship jobs, the governorship, the Presidency, big fancy ranch up in the chi-chi mountains above the chi-chi Santa Barbara community, big bucks, big names, hot 'n' cold running celebrities and movie stars, big industry pals), only to have every last memory of it wiped away while he still lived. To live that life and achieve all that, for good AND IN PARTICULAR for bad, and then be robbed of every last memory of it in his old age. Amazing. I'm in awe.
And under those circumstances, he could have kept himself awfully comfortable in his old age if he'd still had all his marbles. Shit - I shudder to think what damage he could have done after he left office, if he'd still been able. But, thankfully, even mercifully for the rest of us, he had to be put out to pasture almost immediately. Couldn't cash in on ANY of that. That was probably the biggest tragedy for a selfish, happily ignorant, cock-eyed shit like him. All that - and he couldn't cash in on ANY of it. Not a microbe. All he could look forward to was being fed gruel and sponge-bathed and maybe a nice new bathrobe every now and then, and somebody to wipe his ass and change his diapers multiple times a day, and wipe his face whenever he started drooling. Probably couldn't even feed himself by then. The GENUINE Article under the banner "the lights are on but nobody's home." Fitting end for that bastard. Poetic justice, somehow.
I remember reading some reporter's writings about visiting him - when he was sinking fast into his rapidly liquifying brain, and the reporter spent a few minutes with him in the darkened study of his elegant Bel Air mansion (that wealthy industrialist friends had bought for him and Nancy after they left office). The shades were all drawn, and it was dimly lit inside, and he was seated comfortably in the corner in his easy chair, nearly oblivious. As the reporter later noted, there was a beautiful snow globe on the shelf near him - of the White House. And he glanced at it, or maybe the reporter remarked about it during the visit, and reagan's response was - "does that have something to do with me?"
Beautiful. Poetic justice. Poetic justice of the most EXQUISITE kind. All that - and he could remember neither a micron nor a nanosecond of it. Somehow that pleased the hell outta me. Just desserts, you bastard! If that's ALL you come away with, then it just might be an okay thing. It was WELL deserved. If THAT'S your big fat takeaway from all the damage you did - that you can't relish the memories or savor how well it worked out for you and all your little robber-baron friends or go be the guest of honor at untold ritzy 1-percenter cocktail parties and regale everybody with adorable tales of how you triumphed here or showed 'em who's boss there or conned unsuspecting and gullible voters into worshipping everything about you, and being the #1 drum major for Greed On Parade - then I'll take it.
He wound up as human oatmeal. He ended up a real cardboard cutout - with shredded paper where most people have brains. He became the walking dead. A shell of a man with nothing inside. Doomed to live on without a brain while his body held on for far too long. And I could say I enjoyed every minute of it but actually I didn't all that much. I kept wondering how long he was gonna drag on, sucking air off our planet. "Isn't he dead yet?" After awhile I started referring to him as "The Thing that Would Not Die."
Finally, the Grim Reaper got him. I'd say his carcass has fed a lot of earthworms at the Simi Valley reagan worship center, but he's probably buried in some expensive metal casket, inside a concrete fault, buried underground, kinda like nuclear waste. That's how my mother went out - I'm told it's California law. You have to have the coffin encased in a vault, and then the vault is what gets lowered into the ground. Nobody goes straight coffin-into-dirt here anymore.
= new reply since forum marked as read
What a bunch of losers. Now the nation is further behind than when it told one of the last decent statesmen to get lost.
