Was Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg Cemetery in 1985 an example of a brilliant mistake?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-04-28-8501250722-story,amp.html

‘ . . . According to several accounts from Americans involved in planning Reagan’s visit, Chancellor Helmut Kohl [Germany] and his aides have assured the U.S. Embassy that there is nothing about the cemetery that could embarrass the President. . . ’
And that turned out to not exactly be the case.

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Still, it can be argued that Reagan made the best of a bad situation, and some good came of it.
 
The couple of weeks between when the controversial hit and the scheduled date of the visit and placing of a wreath with Kohl, it was the most intense controversy of Reagan’s presidency, more so than Iran-Contra.

And an example of his “teflon presidency”

Yes, I need specific hinge points and branch points for an ATL. If anyone wants to dive in and suggest some, I’d appreciate it.

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Later Edit: Although the public did not seem to hold the visit to Bitburg against Reagan in any kind of sustained way, the American public did hold both unemployment and Iran-Contra against Reagan’s approval rating. Meaning, the Gipper may not have been so "teflon" afterall.

Please see below.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-of-a-brilliant-mistake.458538/#post-18118275
 
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I would say that the incident was an example of a very right wing politician whose gentlemanly facade cracked, allowing the world to briefly see his true colors. I don't think Reagan was a bad President, but at the end of the day he was an actor who used his charm to obscure the unpopularity of his reactionary beliefs and policies. In a way, his visit to the cemetery could be seen as a case of an actor breaking character in the middle of a scene.
 
Changes in historical narration mean events that might be controversial in one era aren’t in another and vice versa. 20-30 years earlier the visit wouldn’t have been controversial, by 1985 it was because of the presence of possible war criminals amongst the dead in the cemetery.

It sort of gets down to the public view on what the whole just following orders is no excuse meant to the public. In the 40s thru 60s it meant racial killings. By the 70s and 80s military acts that violated the established rules and customs of warfare were added on and this was case and point of that era.

By the 90s following orders being ‘no excuse’ was extended to being any part of the German war effort. This was a period before that point where the controversy was viewed as which German soldiers where buried there. And no it didn’t hurt Reagan’s poll numbers.
 
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I would say that the incident was an example of a very right wing politician whose gentlemanly facade cracked, . . .
I disagree.

Reagan merely had a medium dose of the very American disease — the belief that a right-wing government can loosen up whereas a communist government is a black hole.

Whereas if we look at Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Vietnam, and most of all China, a communist government can in fact loosen up. And with some right-wing nations, progress is measured slowly over generations. So, very mixed bag.
 
I disagree.

Reagan merely had a medium dose of the very American disease — the belief that a right-wing government can loosen up whereas a communist government is a black hole.

Whereas if we look at Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Vietnam, and most of all China, a communist government can in fact loosen up. And with some right-wing nations, progress is measured slowly over generations. So, very mixed bag.

If you're implying that Iran-Contra was the only major mistake Reagan made, then I disagree here. Reagan's domestic agenda was broadly a failure; ironically it was by compromising with the Democratic Congress (raising taxes in 1982, saving Social Security in 1983) that Reagan managed to really accomplish progress on the economy and America's welfare state. Otherwise, his Reaganomics ballooned the deficit and transformed America from the world's leading creditor nation to it's leading debtor in only four years. Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility put America on a dangerous course and set the stage for the financial problems we are still dealing with today.

And on top of all that, Reagan took the party of fiscal prudence and individual freedoms and turned it into the party of religious fundamentalism, red ink budgets, and an almost violent hatred of the Federal government that has served to polarize our society and gridlock the political process. Definitely not a good record, although not the worst ever either.
 
. . . Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility . . .
As a good Keynesian, let me say that deficit-spending during economic good times is irresponsible, but deficit-spending and priming the pump during economic bad times is precisely the responsible thing to do.

Being counter-cyclical is the primary feature of Keynesian economics.

* on all this, Reagan’s presidency gets a very mixed record, and I wish I better understood the 1980 and ‘82 double-dip recession — with ‘82 being quite a bit more severe
 
. . . Reagan took the party of fiscal prudence and individual freedoms and turned it into the party of religious fundamentalism, red ink budgets, and an almost violent hatred of the Federal government that has served to polarize our society and gridlock the political process. . .
I worry about such things, too. But to me it’s much broader societal trends than just Reagan.

For example, the 1968 election did not have had economic times to scapegoat off of. And yet, Nixon still ran his “southern strategy” of code words and implied racism, which generally worked for him even with George Wallace in the race as a third party candidate.
 
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I worry about such things, too. But to me it’s much broader societal trends than just Reagan.

For example, the 1968 election did not have had economic times to scapegoat off of. And yet, Nixon still ran his “southern strategy” of code words and implied racism, which generally worked for him even with George Wallace in the race as a third party candidate.

I'd agree in that Reagan didn't just snap his fingers and will his "Revolution" into being: he served as an ideological figurehead who conservatives rallied around and supported in order to reshape American politics. However, had Ford won in '76 or had Bush beaten Reagan in '80 then US political history would've played out very differently.
 
I'd agree in that Reagan didn't just snap his fingers and will his "Revolution" into being: he served as an ideological figurehead who conservatives rallied around and supported in order to reshape American politics. . .
But since Reagan was naturally optimistic, such as talking about a rising tide lifting all boats (economically) which is kind of true, the right-wing did not have as hard an edge as it otherwise would have had, but then again it probably would not have been as politically successful either.

I think his biggest specific negative was that he made it socially acceptable for corporations to wage war against unions, by his own example of his dealings with the air traffic controllers union.
 
Gawd, I remember this incident, and I was a bit stunned at the time, wondering what the hell Reagan was thinking...
He wasn’t thinking. It was poor advance work on the part of Michael Deaver.

And then Reagan was stuck.

And he really didn’t want to let Helmut Kohl down after he had let cruise missiles be based in Germany starting in 1983. In Reagan’s universe, this just trumped.
 
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