Ronald Reagan Mark II (the soap box thread)

[verte76]

Reagan did MORE for AIDS than people give him credit for at the time. I am not saying he could not have done more as President to lead on this issue, however, he is not getting credit for what he did do, which was quite a bit based on looking at the numbers of dollars he put towards it, at a time when there was very little medical knowledge to go on to fight this epidemic.

While I don't want to whitewash the people who didn't mention AIDS in public--I think that is shameful--it's worth keeping in mind that AIDS was not put in the official World Health Organization coding books until 1988. I should know, I was a coding student at the time! I can remember being in class, and being given a number, in the infectious diseases classification, that was the code for AIDS on charts. We wrote this in pen, in our new coding books, and started using the code shortly after this. For the record we didn't have antiretrovirals at the time. If you tested positive for HIV, that was tough, you were doomed in a matter of months. I remember filing charts for AIDS patients in a children's hospital. It was heartbreaking, and one of the reasons I eventually quit that job. I got very tired of those damn death certificates. Trust me I don't miss them.

 

[U2Kitten]

Thats's one thing that gets overlooked in retrospect, it was so new and unknown at the time, there wasn't much anyone could do with the technology and limited knowledge available at the time. Since it still hasn't been cured today with all we know, how could anyone have expected to stop it back then when we knew nothing? There was money given, but there was nothing anyone could do. It's tragic, but with a strain of virus so new you have to start from scratch. There is no miracle cure today and there was far less of a chance of one back then.

 

[anitram]

AIDS has not been cured today because AIDS may never be cured. It is mutating too quickly for us to keep up with it.

From a research POV, Reagan totally dropped the ball, and so did other leaders in the 80s, which is why we have the virus spiralling out of control to this day. They missed their window of opportunity and failed to maximize containment when they had the chance.

 

[verte76]

The thing that was getting the scientists at the time I was an allied health student was the fact that the HIV virus multiplied so damn fast. I never even took a class in microbiology or immunology, (hey, I was really proud of myself for passing freshman physiology) so my knowledge of it was always limited. But yes, they really dropped the ball on AIDS research, and for all of the wrong reasons. Jonas Salk was working on AIDS research and he said it was a much harder disease to work on than polio ever had, and it took him 17 years of research to get the first polio vaccine.

 

[Dreadsox]

From Reagan's Papers September 1985:

[Q]ncluding what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing. And we have $100 million in the budget this year; it'll be 126 million next year. So, this is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer.[/Q]

and the State of the Union February 1986

[Q]We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS.[/Q]



[Q]Fiscal Year ($ Millions) % growth over previous year

1982 8

1983 44 450.00

1984 103 134.09

1985 205 99.03

1986 508 147.80

1987 922 81.50

1988 1,615 75.16

1989 2,322 43.78


Total 5,727[/Q]


Almost $6Billion all together. Would it shock you to learn there was no other health issue, not even cancer, that received more money over his Presidency?

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200312030913.asp

 

[ThatGuy]

and the State of the Union February 1986

We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS.

This isn't from the 1986 State of the Union address. Rather it's from another separate speech delivered to Congress two days after the 1986 SOTU. Reagan never mentioned AIDS publically until 1987.

Transcript of 1986 SOTU
Transcript of speech given to Congress two days later.

And while all that money given looks significant, it was far less than the amount suggested at the time by people like C. Everett Koop and the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.house.gov/waxman/issues/health/issues_health_HIV_news_Reagan_gambit_4_6_87.htm

 

[Dreadsox]

It is significant when it is more than any other disease, unless I am wrong, which goes to show you not to believe everything you read.....

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So speaking before congress does not count as public?
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Kudos on the research!

 

[verte76]

C. Everett Koop was my hero. He was brilliant, innovative, and gutsy, and I think I would have supported the guy for King.

 

[BluberryPoptart]

How could it possibly have been contained? Take everybody who had it and lock them up? Monitor everyone's behavior and make sure they don't do anything risky? Impossible

At the time, there were cries for taking all the infected and doomed to a commune or something and lock them up to keep it from spreading. In those days we weren't sure yet what caused it and what didn't so everyone was afraid. Of course it was all written off as "hysteria" and ignored. Education was out there, pamphlets were being handed out, but risky behavior continued. Then it got into the blood supply. I've already posted about that.

 

[anitram]

Dreadsox, it may or may not be that cancer got more funding.

You have to understand something about cancer research - oftentimes when you apply for governmental (or external) grants, you are not applying directly to do cancer research. This is because cancer falls under the category of molecular biology/genetics and therefore is a lot more funded than people think.

My laboratory for example, is currently testing out some blockers, but the initial grant supporting them is not listed as a cancer grant, rather it falls under autoimmune research funding.

So when you see cancer funding, that may not always be telling you the whole story.

ETA another example: a lab a couple of floors down is almost entirely funded by Crohn's Society, yet they are working on colorectal cancer as well through that funding, so this is another way that you see cancer funding slip through the cracks when you add up the numbers.

 

[Dreadsox]

Anitram,

During his tenure as President, no other health related funding was higher than AIDS in the "President's budget".


maybe Sting can somehow cross check this for me but i believe this to be accurate based on my readings tonight.

 

[Dreadsox]

In my heart, I wish he had spoken out and acted sooner. However, he did act. I found this in my searching for info tonight:

[Q]REAGAN AND AIDS: The last couple of words. Here's an email from Bob Roehr, one of the best gay journalists who has long covered HIV:

To my mind, the important questions concern whether the role that the President plays or doesn't play has a long-term impact on the course of the epidemic. I think that in most cases it does not.

In the 1980s activists made the case that Presidential leadership, a greater sense of urgency, and the spending of more money could have a dramatic impact on the course of the epidemic. Their arguments were focused on "a cure" for those already infected, with prevention being a decidedly secondary note. From the perspective of time, and with different leadership and the expenditure of vast sums of money, it has become clear, at least to me, that the crucial issues with regard to a cure and an all-important vaccine are scientific ones that still have not been resolved despite applying all of that time, effort, and resources to them. I have little reason to believe that a different course of action by Reagan would have significantly altered the scientific state of knowledge. And those who continue to throw those charges against him only do that, they build no plausible scientific case.

The one area where leadership has made a difference in selected countries is in prevention activities, and the Reagan administration can be faulted there. BUT that was not the core of the activists' case against Reagan, it was the "cure." Furthermore, knowledge of HIV and how to avoid contracting it has been widespread within American society for a very long time, dating at least from the mass mailing by Reagan Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, yet people still continue to become infected. We all know that there is a very large element of personal responsibility in the transmission of new infections, a fact that too many activists continue to downplay.

If the activist case against Reagan were valid, then it would be equally valid to lay medical successes at the feet of the sitting President. When was the last time that Eisenhower got credit for the miraculous polio vaccine? The fact is, we give credit to those who actually do the work or significantly impede it. With the benefit of a longer course of history, it is clear that Reagan did little of either. I feel that the news coverage is largely justified.

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I tend to agree. For the record: Reagan didn't give me HIV. Another gay man did, with my unwitting consent. I did practise safer sex, but it obviously failed. That is my responsibility and bad luck - no one else's. But it is equally true that Reagan's silence for so long was inexcusable. He was silent because he and Bill Bennett and Gary Bauer believed that gay lives were not worth as much as straight ones. There is no other explanation. If an epidemic had broken out affecting, say, elderly women, is it conceivable Reagan would have said nothing for four and a half years? Nope. In my practical defense of the Reagan administration, I do not mean to provide a moral defense. As even Jesse Helms came to realize, there is none.
[/Q]

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php

And again, my only thoughts are the impression one would get here is that the President did nothing. Fact is, he started in 1985 by asking Koop to act. He spoke about it in congress in 1986. And HIS BUDGET put money towards AIDS more than any other health issue.

 

[anitram]

The scientific community has this to say (you cannot read the articles in full as you need to either have access through a university proxy server or work in research and have passwords to get them for free):

Feds defend AIDS policy as HIV rate increases among women worldwide. (Wash Memo Alan Guttmacher Inst. 1992 Jul 29;(12):3-4. )

Among other things, says:

A retired CDC official has claimed that senior staff selection and funding for family planning and AIDS have all been directed by the Reagan/Bush administration with an interest in politics and conservative morality, rather than public health. Members of Congress, the National Commission of AIDS, and HIV prevention advocates have claimed that the Executive branch is more concerned with politics than public health. The results of this year's international AIDS Conference (IAC) have indicated that education and prevention are still and will be the only known way of effectively dealing with AIDS. It is in these 2 areas that the Executive branch has been weakest.

International behavioral responses to a health hazard: AIDS. (Soc Sci Med. 1990;31(9):951-62.)


Says:

The biology and epidemiology of AIDS require a coordinated attack, involving research on vaccines and drugs, modification of human behavior and education of populations to arrest the disease. All of these require money, of which the United States was the major contributor before the Reagan years. Funding to the United Nations and WHO has since languished, jeopardizing the AIDS efforts of those two organizations.

You may also take a look at Frozen in ice. Federal health policy during the Reagan years. (Health PAC Bull. 1988 Summer;18(2):4-7, 9-14.)

AIDS funding: competing needs and the politics of priorities. (Int J Health Serv. 1988;18(4):521-41.)

Consequent AIDS-related resource crises include diverting funds for research on other diseases to AIDS investigations, propping up AIDS prevention efforts at the expense of traditional sexually transmitted disease control programs, and pitting the health needs of AIDS patients against the needs of those seeking other urgent health services, e.g., prenatal care. While this forced competition typically is blamed on fiscal constraints, examination of federal spending priorities suggests that it results principally from Reagan Administration policies. This Administration has consistently boosted military spending at the expense of social and health services, and has deliberately undermined efforts to obtain sufficient and new allocations for AIDS.

Look up Ignoring the epidemic. How the Reagan administration failed on AIDS. (Health PAC Bull. 1986 Dec;17(2):7-11.)

This is just scratching the surface. You can find dozens of articles on how the Reagan administration was a failure on AIDS. A search on positive views will leave you with pretty much nothing in the scientific community. In fact, I've yet to find one on PubMed thus far tonight and that should tell you something.

 

[ThatGuy]

So speaking before congress does not count as public?

Actually, on further review it looks like it was a paper issued to Congress, and not a speech. Even though it's listed in the Internet address as a "speech" going back a few levels actually shows that it's from a list of speeches and other papers.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1986/86feb.htm

From looking at other speeches and papers from that site, this reads more like a paper then a speech.

Kudos on the research!

Thanks, but I actually got most of it from this blog.

 

[STING2]

anitram,

"This is just scratching the surface. You can find dozens of articles on how the Reagan administration was a failure on AIDS. A search on positive views will leave you with pretty much nothing in the scientific community. In fact, I've yet to find one on PubMed thus far tonight and that should tell you something."

What precisely does the "Scientific Community" say the Reagan administration would have had to have spent to be a "Success on Aids"? What is the political bias, if any, of the "Scientific Community"? How did the "Scientific Community" rate Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr?

One of your articles sites the Reagan Administrations boosting of Defense Spending as an attack on Aids Funding. That is simply rubish and shows obvious political bias. If that was from the scientific and health community, perhaps someone should inform them of the effects of neglecting defense spending. The defense spending increases in the 1980s were an absolute necessity!

 

[STING2]

I don?t have respect for every one who has passed away. I do not want to offend, so forgive my disrespect.

Without bothering to read all the great comments about respect and passing away, this separation of threads again seems weird to me. Like apartheid in words. Put the black comments there, and put the white comments there. Segregation.

In my eyes, Reagan was a killer. I hope now he?s burning in hell, as he deserves to feel a little part of the pain he is responsible for.

Go ahead flame me. I?m a fighter. This man was one of my enemies. That bitch Thatcher is still alive.

Anyway... Blessings to all you good people who are gonna flame me for their principles. You got a good heart. Keep it.

Who did Reagan murder? Why would you hope that anyone is burning in hell? Do you extend these thoughts and feelings to those who approved and pushed for Reagan's policies?

You say "That bitch Thatcher is still alive". Could you explain a little more what your trying to convey with this statement?

 

[U2Kitten]

That was extreme.

I've been hesitant to mention this but can anyone really deny that a large part of the failure to control the spread of AIDS in the 80's is because a lot of people in high risk groups did not control their behavior? You have people here saying that Americans are going to die from being fat if we don't stop eating but you can't force everyone to change. No government, no money stop people from engaging in risky behavior. There was education out there, my Dad used to bring the leaflets home from work and talk to me about it. There were people on the streets handing stuff out, even free condoms and talking of 'safe sex.' This did eventually help and come close to ending the spread of AIDS in among homonsexuals, at least white, upscale men. But the poor prostitude and junkie didn't stop and some still haven't. The fear of the 80's, the shock of losing so many people so fast, has now faded into memory and from what I've been reading young people today are more careless again.

Let me explain something about this before you flame me. My husband's oldest brother passed away from AIDS 10 years ago. He died at home on his couch, unable to afford a hospital after losing his job at a large insurance company and not qualifying for welfare. He was a nice guy, very intelligent, and very caring. Yes, he was gay. He left home at an early age and was very active in the gay community of both SF and NYC in the 80's. He had settled in SF, moved to NYC for hs job, and moved back for another job. He died there. On one of his rare visits before he became too sick, I was at their parent's house when he told us that the problem was, too many people didn't worry about it, they thought they were young and invincible, and the old things like that only happen to 'other people.' At that time he didn't admit he had it, but something in his eyes gave it away, and I guessed it long before anyone else did though I didn't feel it was my place to say anything. But he never hated or blamed anyone, not Reagan, not the government, not society, no one.


This is and always will be a tragic story. The entire story of AIDS is. But I don't think it's fair to point fingers at anyone, because none of the people involved would have done what they did or didn't do if they knew what was going to happen. If we all only had a crystal ball, nothing bad would ever happen.

 

[U2Kitten]

One more thing, I also think that some of the extreme hateful comments aimed at Reagan here are blaming him for things he never said or did, could some people be confusing him with Jesse Helms? Helms DID make comments about it being a punishment and stuff like that, he was openly anti-gay and against any legislation for AIDS. But Bono has since completely changed his mind!

 

[verte76]

To me the most offensive kind of comment about AIDS is undoubtedly this about it being a punishment. I do not recall Reagan ever saying this. He might not have done everything in his power to fight AIDS. That's unfortunate. But I reserve my contempt for the jerks who made those self-righteous statements about it being a punishment for gays and this sort of thing. Those people can go to hell. They're haters. For all of my criticism of Reagan as a president I never considered him a hater or anything close.

 

[U2Kitten]

No, I never heard him say anything like that either. I don't believe it. Helms, yes, Reagan, no. He was President and all his speeches are written by specialists to put the best possible spin on things, it would be insane to have him make a remark like that. But he didn't, so it's unfair to hate him for it and say he should burn in hell.(Verte I know you didn't do it) Even Helms has changed his postion thanks to Bono. I remember once on the news a bunch of activists went to his house and completely covered it in a giant condom

 

[Angela Harlem]

AIDS was spreading before the education was available and being freely given. It took a while for society to catch up.

 

[U2Kitten]

AIDS was spreading before the education was available and being freely given. It took a while for society to catch up.

I remember as early as 1981 or 82, my Dad came home with some pamphlets about it. He said it was a 'brand new disease.' I asked him what AIDS it stood for, and he said, "acquired immune deficiency syndrome." He worked for an Army reserve unit and they were already handing out info in the military on what they knew back then. If I told you some of the odd theories that were going around in the early 80's, you'd be shocked. There was some education being spread about it as early as the early 80's, and it was all over the news. Anway, I can't believe the people who had it and were spreading it knew nothing of it, since they were the ones who were getting sick and going to the doctor and seeing friends get sick.

As the 80's progressed, he had to go to seminars on it for his job and would always bring me home literature. To tell you the truth, I was a little offended he thought I would be engaging in unsafe sex, or sex at all at my age, but he said it was better to be safe than sorry and everyone should be informed. We also learned about it in school, and I graduated in '88 so I know it was before that.

It is true that very little was known about it in those days, and that made it even scarier. You would hear things about how it was spread then they'd change it. This was common and frequently on the news. It was so new, we were finding out the hard way as we went along. But because the facts were unknown and it was so elusive and mysterious is all the more reason nothing could be done to stop it. You can't go into everyone's home or every street corner and prohibit people from having unsafe sex or using dirty needles. You can't throw a trillion dollars at something nobody knows how to fix. Yes you have to try and people did try. To this day it has not been cured, so I don't see how anyone could have expected it to be magically cured back then regardless of funding because the knowledge and technology did not exist and even today it's not helping I don't understand what kind of magic wand Reagan or Thatcher or anyone else was supposed to use to make it disappear.

 

[Angela Harlem]

I'm not sure if you are trying to say that the education was out there and very much public. Those pamphlets did little to stop the medical community from allowing people to contract it through transfusions. Did little to help the gay community. Did little to help the drug using community. Alternatively, I wouldn't try and say that everyone was aware and therefore just careless. But the numbers alone from the early 80's don't say "mass education". Quite the contrary.

In regard to the comments that Reagan might have hindered the control in the early days due to [insert reason here], I can't comment on. But there is no way that society was aware and simply nonchalant.

 

[ThatGuy]

I don't think that anyone thinks that Reagan or his administration could magically make AIDS disappear with more money. I think that the main reason people are disappointed, or angry is because the Reagan administration ignored the problem even as it was becoming apparent that it was an epidemic. And that they were ignoring it because it was "only" gays and drug users getting it and dying at the time. Dreadsox posted an article written by a gay man with AIDS who pointed out that if the disease had been killing grandmothers Reagan wouldn't have waited six years to even mention the disease publically. He would have poured as much money as he could into finding the causes of the disease, educating the public about it, and trying to find a cure.

That's not to say that people within the government weren't fighting the AIDS crisis. The CDC was actively trying to research AIDS and educate the public. But there was only so much they could do as they were hamstrung by a lack of funding from an administration that didn't know or didn't care about the severity of AIDS. How many years after the outbreak did Reagan order his surgeon general, the highest-ranking public health official in the country, to take a look into it? Four, five years? Too long. And when Koop did research it he advocated an agressive education campaign that was slapped down by ultra-conservative members of the administration like William Bennett. So it wasn't just a policy of inaction, it was a policy of willful inaction, and it angered a lot of people.

 

[U2Kitten]

I'm not sure if you are trying to say that the education was out there and very much public. Those pamphlets did little to stop the medical community from allowing people to contract it through transfusions. Did little to help the gay community. Did little to help the drug using community. Alternatively, I wouldn't try and say that everyone was aware and therefore just careless. But the numbers alone from the early 80's don't say "mass education". Quite the contrary.

In regard to the comments that Reagan might have hindered the control in the early days due to [insert reason here], I can't comment on. But there is no way that society was aware and simply nonchalant.

The people who had it had to have known, since they were the ones getting sick. I don't want to sound bad for saying this, but honestly, many people who did know continued to have unprotected sex (gay and straight) after they knew about it, and the drug addicts continued to use the dirty needles. As I told you in the other post, I knew a guy who had it (my brother in law) and he said people had the attitude that they couldn't worry about it and it would not happen to them. When it did it was too late. I'm sorry, hate me all you want, but a lot of the spread of the disease happened because people were careless. But realistically you couldn't lock up everyone who had it, so there was no way to contain it. There were even stories on the news of intentional spreading, male and female 'typhoid Marys" who had a vendetta and slept with people knowing they had it and hoping to spread it. Then there were those who were too drugged up to even think about it, and those who were too afraid to be tested. That dentist in Florida who intentionally gave it to his patients, the most famous of whom was Kimberly Bergalis. Then there was Ryan White and the hemophiliacs. But the bottom line is the government cannot control every single person, or force people to be responsible.

Just like you can't stop people from eating or drinking or smoking too much even though they know it's a possible health risk.

The blood? That is another story. People had the theory in 1982 blood could have something to do with it but 3 precious years slipped by before it was proven and testing was mandatory. By then thousands of people had caught it through blood transfusions, and had spread it to their sex partners. I saw one story on the news once of an older woman and her husband who had it because she had surgery and recieved tainted blood and he had sex with her. Then suppose these sex partners go cheating with other people, then the people they did it with did it with someone else, and so on. It spread that way too. But the saddest thing about the blood is that the businesses that bought and sold blood refused to believe it because it was too devastating to their industry financially so they went on like nothing was wrong, taking blood from hookers and junkies, giving it to sick and injured people in hospitals. MONEY caused thousands to die, not Ronald Reagan or the government, the GREED of those companies and their refusal to consider the possibilities until things were too far gone.

The only way it could have been stopped is to get it when only a few people had it and put them all in quarentine. No one would or could do that. Once it was out in the general public, it was too late. You say there was no way society was aware and simply nonchalant. You're right. They knew, and they were terrified. I would never use a public toilet if I could help it because people said it spread that way. They used to say things like, don't stick your hand in a trash can, there could be a bloody needle! There were so many stories, someone with AIDS jacking off in the mayonaise and putting it on burgers, bug bites spreading it, Lydon LaRouche ran for president in '88 under the slogan 'Mosquitoes don't wear condoms.' I could go on but I have the feeling no one is reading or believing me anyway. But the truth is, everyone knew, everyone was scared, but there was nothing that could be done and no one should be blamed.

 

[U2Kitten]

I know this is off the Reagan subject, but AIDS spreading in Africa at an alarming rate was partly due to lack of information or it even being taboo in some cultures to speak of it. Bono said on a story about him in Africa that in some places, especially strict Islamic ones, you are not allowed to talk about it, especially not to girls. Bono said an entire generation is already gone, everywhere he went, there were kids and grandparents, but the young adults about 25-50 were all dead or sick already. The most important thing we can do for Africa now is save those kids! We have to spread the word about education, because while the medicine is important it will not cure the disease or save lives for very long. People have to know how it is spread and how to prevent it. It's all so sad.

 

[U2Kitten]

Dreadsox posted an article written by a gay man with AIDS who pointed out that if the disease had been killing grandmothers Reagan wouldn't have waited six years to even mention the disease publically.

That's almost exactly what the Florida dentist proven to infect his patients with his own blood was quoted as saying, "when you see grandmothers and kids getting it, you'll see something done!" So he gave it to grandmothers and teenage virgin girls. And they died. And he died. Because there was no cure, and there still isn't regardless of who has it. But stories like that dentist only served to spread more fear and hysteria over it and hurt the cause at the time.

As for the rest of your post, I remember all those accusations too, I can't say if they are all true or not so I won't. But a lot of money was given, not enough, it's never enough for AIDS, cancer or any other incurable disease.

 

[deep]

Reagan's record on AIDS, race relations, South Africa, and empowering terrorists by "negotiating and giving arms" is NOT good. National Review Online and other right wing groups can water down and misstate facts to revised history to their liking all they want. The record is out there and those of us who lived through it will not be misled on those issues.

There are other issues on which his record is much better.

Let his record as President be evaluated on the totality.


Detactors should not minimize his accomplishments either.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Here's a link to a timeline of AIDS...kind of mindblowing to see it all laid out in one place. By the time Reagan began to address it, over 12,000 people had already died. I've lost many, many friends to AIDS, the first one in 1982 and the most recent one on New Year's Eve 2003. In fact, only 2 of my gay friends from the early 80s are still alive and HIV negative and every single one of their friends from that period are dead. On the other hand, all of my friends who never took AZT and are on the new AIDS cocktails are really, really healthy and their viral loads are undetectable. One of my friends has been HIV+ for 18 years, never took AZT, and is healthy as a horse. Thank God for the new meds.


http://www.aegis.com/topics/timeline/default.asp

 

[U2Kitten]

Apartheid ended under his Presidency.

Race relations were worse in the 90's after the LA riots.

The arming of terrorists is another case of not having a crystal ball. We know now it was stupid, but back then we were worried about the immediate threat of Communism in Central America and wanted to help the rebels fighting them. It's all pointless now that the Soviet Union fell but we didn't know. The US took up for Afghanistan over Russia because at the time Russia was the big enemy and Afghahistan was nothing to us. Same with the Iran/Iraq war. We were so against Iran at that time the US was rooting for Iraq to kick their ass and so they helped them. Who would have thought they'd be an enemy too? Yes these were mistakes, but they were not intentional. You can't really blame someone for not being able to predict and forsee every possible scenario from the future.

He wasn't perfect, no one is, but I really think way too much blame is being laid on this man for things that were not his fault. Who knows what might have happened had Mondale gotten in there instead, could be way worse, who knows. Nobody. So that's why there's no reason to keep speculating and blaming people.

You all forget too that this man did not have absolute power! Congress still had to approve things. No matter what he wanted to do it had to start and end with other people. If you want to start blaming people you'd better make a list, the man could not do or start or stop anything on his own.