There has been a certain amount of …well, the usual invocation of Ronald Reagan’s memory in order to justify other people’s positions on issues, particularly the ones where they’re not majority positions in the Republican party. Latest offender – and it’s a shame that I have to use the word, in this case: I like the guy – is former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who wondered yesterday whether Reagan would be able to get Tea Party/conservative support these days. Well, it’s interesting that today is the 25th Anniversary of Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech*.

So let’s check:

Would you throw this guy out of the party? Even if you didn’t agree with him on, say, immigration issues? – No, I didn’t think that you would, either. Better a man that you disagree with in part, yet trust, than a man who you do agree with, but do not. And that was the thing with Reagan; you always knew what you were getting with the man. That’s why most of us had issues with Mitt Romney: we weren’t sure that he meant it when Romney said that he was going to fight for the nomination. And that’s also why those issues have been getting less and less publicly aired; it’s become increasingly clear that indeed – and on this, at least – Romney meant it.

I don’t want to dwell on the topic: after all, better that dirty laundry get aired occasionally, and honestly it’s not as if either side of this particular debate is 100% simon-pure and squeaky-clean, either. I just wish that folks like Jeb Bush were a little more trusting of the GOP base. Or at least a little more conscious of why the Left is so desperate to promote dissension in our ranks.

Moe “Social Moderate Squish” Lane (crosspost)

PS: Exhibit B.

*You know. The one that Barack Obama tried – and abjectly failed – to surpass in 2008. Personally, on reflection I kind of wish that the Germans had let Obama speak at the Brandenburg Gate. It would have ended up being even more humiliating for the man.