Ronald Reagan Did NOT "Steal" The 1980 Election With An "October Surprise"!

But The NYT's has conned many Substack'ers into pissing on his grave

“Do not let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good”. - Russell Kirk.

“Due diligence is not a past due bill from a persistent creditor”. - Me.

Ronald Reagan at Independence Hall on 200th Anniversary of the signing of The U.S. Constitution

From what I have read, Mark Crispin Miller seems like an honest enough trader in the currency of alternative media reporting. I don’t know him and wish to cast no aspersions upon any of his previous or future works. HOWEVER, MCM’s hyperbolic claim is just that:

Ahhh, so now that the NYT is in harmony with MCM’s life’s work, they are now the shining city on Newspaper Hill.

Bullshizer.

The Times despised Reagan in the elections of 1980 and 1984; in his Farewell in 1988; at the 1992 RNC and at his final public speech at 1994’s CPAC. They despised him in retirement and they despised him and rejoiced at his death. This in and of itself is not evidence for or against the now “viral” story of the new “proof” (proof! I tell you!) of the “October Surprise” but it does cause one to be wary of the Times as a source for anything about Ronald Wilson Reagan. Especially when it comes in the form of what we Catholics call a “casket canonization” of he who Reagan so decisively defeated after this fairy tale of the “October Surprise”; one James Earl Carter who has entered hospice care (nota bene, I am not wishing Carter to his grave).

Here are the facts of Reagan’s unprecedented crushing of Carter in 1980, the first election I ever cast a vote in and I cast it, at 18 and politically not savvy, for Reagan.

Reagan beat Carter by a whopping 8.5 MILLION votes; the same kind of ass whoopin’ Mr. T would dole out to Rocky Balboa 2 years later in Rocky III. To even imply that this election’s outcome was hanging by so short a thread that 1 single, not “kitchen table” issue (that of the Americans still held hostage in Iran) being settled in favor of one candidate or the other, could have tipped the proverbial scales is what fan boy fantasies were invented for.

This is obviously the Times, and Crispin Miller’s, attempt to pump one final dose of media malpractice into Reagan’s legacy and place an unearned run in Carter’s. The Times piece’s star practically says so much.

In 1980, evidently hoping for a cabinet appointment, Connolly did his bit to ensure Reagan’s victory by swinging through Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, ostensibly on business, but using every stop (except the one in Israel) to urge his hosts to tell Iran that they would get a better deal from Reagan/Bush than any offered them by Carter, and, therefore, not to let his people go. A former aide to Connolly, and now his business partner, Barnes was there throughout the trip, and saw it all. Back home, he told four (reputable) people what he saw, which, according to the Times, they have confirmed. With Carter now in hospice, Barnes was moved by conscience to come clean at last. Baker gives him the last word: “I just want history to reflect that Carter got a little bit of a bad deal about the hostages. He didn’t have a fighting chance with those hostages still in the embassy in Iran.” [emphasis mine]

The piece, which is now being touted as the crown jewel of journalistic integrity; a veritable “correcting of the record..and restoring the prestige” of the Times.

Bollocks.

The piece details a trip former Texas governor John Connally took to the middle east (see above). As this new/old legend goes, Connally met with every mid-east country except for Iran but insisted that he told each one to help Reagan win by securing the hostages until Reagan was safely inaugurated, thus to kick start the Reagan presidency with a “victory” because the senile old bastard had nothing else on the tapis to achieve this.

Recall that when the U.S. beat the Soviets in the first medal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics—Disney made a Kurt Russell movie about it called “Miracle”— it was the biggest sporting and cultural story of the year. Why? Because Carter & the Demoncrat party had the United States in its worst state of malaise and downright depression since the Great Depression. Reagan commented on the Team’s victory while on the campaign trail because he knew it was a spectacular boost in spirits for the American people. Years later he would even invite the then (1987) U.S. Hockey Team to the White House and said this.

I don't have to tell you what a great privilege it is to be on this team. I think you know the U.S. Olympic team seems to have permanently captured the American imagination. Surely, the storybook victories of 1960 and 1980, when young American athletes, given little chance for the gold medal, won against far more experienced opponents. And they have a great deal to do with that, but it goes even deeper. I think Americans see in this team a national symbol, a symbol of what might be called the corny, homegrown conviction that victory can come to those who live by the amateur spirit, who play fair and by the rules, that nice guys in a tough world can finish first.

I bring this up to just illustrate the point: Reagan didn’t NEED the hostage crisis to beat Carter. Watch the final debate twixt him and Carter and see if the Iranian Hostage Crisis was Reagan’s major complaint/challenge against Carter. It wasn’t but it was “It’s the economy, stupid.” The first question in that debate was about the Soviets and “peace through strength”, see for yourself.

I won’t even get into the preposterous notion that a former governor of an American state carried so much prestige (Muslims don’t trust gentiles to begin with) that such a proxy promise from a presidential candidate would carry such weight as to sway the Ayatollah Khomeni is as believable as Biden’s claim that the Russians blew up the Nordstream or that there are bridges to be sold in Arizona’s deserts.

To claim that Ronald Reagan “stole” the 1980 election and used the “October surprise” to do so is revisionist history at best and a vicious lie at worst. “Theft” doesn’t imply, it accuses and convicts Reagan of robbing something that was rightfully James Earl Carter’s and the facts of that election do not support even making that claim.

‘Tis why you might not erect idols to so many Outrage Candy pimps here on Substack as your journalistic heroes.

File this under “Win one for the Gipper” (who BTW, played for Our Lady i.e. Notre Dame)!

Our Lady of America, ora pro nobis.