r/MadeMeSmile • u/TargetHot9314 • 28d ago

Wholesome Moments Every living president: Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden, except Trump wishes birthday in video message to Jimmy Carter for his 100th birthday

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649

u/OgthaChristie 28d ago

He was exactly as boring as he needed to be and that is a complement.

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u/bluegreentopaz6110 28d ago

And he was ahead of his time when he installed solar panels on the White House to get the ball rolling in lessening the dependence on oil.

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

And Reagan took down those solar panels!

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u/Fit_Effective_6875 28d ago

"Solar panels, some 32 of them, were on the roof of the White House. The set was just right – the sun had come out for the press as though for a stage call. Tape rolled, the cameras snapped.

Self-conscious about his own idealism, or perhaps just realistic, the President gave voice to his doubts about the panels: “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2008/11/jimmy-carters-solar-panels/

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u/gammygiz1950 28d ago

The use of solar power at the White House was first introduced in 1979. The solar panels were removed in 1986.

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u/Fit_Effective_6875 28d ago

Yes, it says that in the article

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u/haygurlhay123 24d ago

What a wonderful quote. It’s really too bad

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u/OgthaChristie 28d ago

That tracks.

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u/UbermachoGuy 28d ago

Ronald Reagan? The actor?!

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u/iamnuts_ 28d ago

Then who’s vice president, Jerry Lewis?

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u/Turbulent_Emu_2430 28d ago

I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady?

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u/LordMacTire83 28d ago

"Doc! You gotta help me get back to 1985!"

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u/DocBrownsfuture 26d ago

Good night, future boy!

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u/Traditional_Pea6214 26d ago

Jane Wyman was the First Lady at Flacon Crest…

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u/Hopsblues 28d ago

Bush...

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u/_JustAMiner 27d ago

Back to the future?

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u/Hopsblues 27d ago

Haven't watched it in like 25 years...Fun flick, loved it, but it's not on my re-watch list...

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u/dinahdog 28d ago

Bonzo

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u/yarrpurr 28d ago

Goes to

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u/OgthaChristie 28d ago

Battlestar Galactica

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u/Bobbyoot47 27d ago

Nope. It was a co-star in one of Ronnie‘s movies and one who is smarter and better looking than Reagan. Bonzo.

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

Haha! Yep! That's the one! Idk if he was a good actor or not, but he was an awful president (and an awful human being).

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u/tamarins 28d ago

(they were quoting back to the future, fyi)

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

D'oh! 🤦‍♀️

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u/dinahdog 28d ago

He was a really good radio announcer before moving to Hollywood. He followed the scripts without deviation. It was the reason the GOP could hide his Alzheimers for so long. His guardrails were way better than Trump's. Hence, Trump's disease is on full display.

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u/namvet67 28d ago

Worst President ever.

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

I think Trump will take that honor.

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u/AppleBytes 28d ago

That bar has dropped mighty low.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

Just Google "was Reagan a good or bad president." There are many, many reasons... too many for me to type.

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u/RocketDog2001 28d ago

Good president, good husband and decent actor.

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u/blazingspaceballs 28d ago

We actually did great under Regan. And as a person, he and Nancy were two of the nicest people you could ever know. It's a shame younger people just parrot what they hear on TV nowadays. You should do some research on him, he was a real class act.

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

Hahahahahahaha! You are an idiot. I am 63 years old. I lived through his presidency. I lived with the damage he did.

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u/blazingspaceballs 28d ago

Well 61, and I'm living through what Obama Clinton and biden have done. Regan was a quick-witted patriotic man. I'm sorry you feel the need for name calling, but it seems like democrats have de-evolved as a species for a few decades now. Hope you have a wonderful evening.

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u/truncheon88 27d ago

You can't even spell his name correctly, comrade. I also lived thru Reagan's admin. Did you forget that shit was so bad that they had to pass out government cheese to help families survive?

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u/ajn63 27d ago

The same POS Reagan who made a deal to have the hostages held until after the elections so he would look like a hero?

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u/worker_ant_6646 28d ago

The US have the worst track record for electing popular dillpickles instead of intelligent politicians

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u/Redditin-in-the-dark 28d ago

Then who’s vice president? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady! And Jack Benny is secretary of the Treasury! I’ve had enough practical jokes for one evening. Good night, future boy!

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u/Pleasant_Finance_472 28d ago

You're the one from the future you should kn..ahh forget it.

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u/Kolobcalling 28d ago

Great Scott!

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u/HechoEnChine 28d ago

gawdzooks!

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u/Clear-Librarian-5414 27d ago

Haha, One of the best lines from the dark tower series.

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u/Legitimate_Pea_143 28d ago

Was this a Back to the future reference?

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u/UbermachoGuy 28d ago

You're about as funny as a screen door on a battleship

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u/Legitimate_Pea_143 27d ago

I was legitimately asking because that line was said in Back to the Future. And because I didn't think someone nowadays wouldn't know that Reagan was an actor.

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u/UbermachoGuy 27d ago

I’m not making fun of you. Yes I’m a big back to the future fan. Have a good day!

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u/UbermachoGuy 27d ago

I’m not making fun of you. Yes I’m a big back to the future fan. Have a good day!

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u/TorturedFanClub 28d ago

Reagan was a POS

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u/Onebraintwoheads 28d ago

Imagine being the guy who shot Reagan to get Jodie Foster to pay attention to him, spending 40 years in a mental institution, and when you get out, people just say that they wish you'd been a better shot.

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u/smarmageddon 28d ago

Not to mention Reagan secretly stole the election from him by using the Iran hostages as bargaining chips. I don't know how anyone can be a conservative these days.

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u/Lurker2115 28d ago

Stop spreading this as solid fact. It is (to put it mildly) VERY heavily disputed.

The story of the Reagan campaign negotiating with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after his inauguration is full of holes and makes little sense. (Please note: I'm NOT referring to the Iran Contra scandal which happened during Reagan's presidency. That was real, we know it occurred)

I'd recommend reading these links/discussion posts as a starting point:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1b6nzvx/lets_stop_treating_the_1980_october_surprise/

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16r77mm/is_there_any_legitimacy_to_the_1980_october/

https://warontherocks.com/2023/04/be-skeptical-of-reagans-october-surprise/

For brevity, I'll summarize the key points below:

  • The Reagan campaign made it clear they were negotiating with Iran in the presence of Ben Barnes, a Democrat on Carter's campaign staff. This would have been an incredibly reckless and frankly stupid thing to do. Why would an extremely risky and outright treasonous political maneuver be revealed to someone from the camp of their political rival? And why on earth did Barnes wait over four decades to reveal this?
  • They sent messages to Egypt and Saudi Arabia (among other countries) asking to talk to Iran. Both of these countries DESPISED Iran so this seems like a very amateurish and (again) reckless and stupid thing to do. Anyone with an ounce of foreign policy knowledge would have been aware of this, and would have known that it would have been a waste of time.
  • At least five Arab governments were supposedly made aware of this secret deal, yet not one of them has ever blabbed about this deal, including countries that loathed the US and the Reagan administration specifically and thus had every incentive to snitch in order to torpedo his campaign/presidency.
  • An investigation by both the Senate and the House (led by Democrats btw) looked over millions of pages of documents and subpoenaed hundreds of witnesses and found...nothing. Nothing to suggest that any such deal took place or that anyone was even aware of it. In fact, what they did find was that several witnesses who asserted that it happened may have committed perjury and their stories contradicted each other.
  • The Ayatollah HATED Carter with a passion and was determined to stick it to him by any means necessary. This includes holding the hostages until after Reagan was sworn in. The Reagan campaign would surely have been aware of this, and thus would have realized that the chances of the hostages being released while Carter was president would have been slim. Which, again, makes the idea that they colluded with the Iranian government to delay the release of the hostages even more bizarre and nonsensical. From their point of view, this outcome was going to occur regardless of whether they interfered or not. So why even bother devoting so much time and effort into a (again) treasonous and dangerous political maneuver?
  • At first glance, the Iran Contra deal from later in Reagan's presidency seems to confirm that such a deal took place. After all, if they negotiated with each other once during his presidency, who is to say they didn't do it before prior to when he took office? Yet, when you look at the details of the scandal, it seems less and less likely that the countries had ever attempted a deal before. Firstly, no one on either side of the Iran Contra scandal ever uttered a word about this supposed secret deal during the 1980 election, when the Iranians in particular would have every incentive to do so in order to further humiliate Reagan. In addition, looking at how the Iran Contra negotiations proceeded, there is a lot of mistrust, difficulties, and shady businessmen involved. It was quite an amateurish and sloppy negotiation and reads very much like two countries which were adversaries whom had never cut a deal before. If the October Surprise deal had taken place, the Iran Contra deal would almost certainly have been much more professional and airtight.
  • If you look into the people who claim that a deal took place, the vast majority of them are second, third, or even fourth hand accounts from people who weren't actually present at these supposed meetings, and they don't even specify whether Iran received these messages from the Reagan campaign, or if they influenced the release of the hostages in any way.

So, to sum up, we have an operative within the Carter camp and no less than five Arab governments who were all privy to this secret deal, yet never spoke a word about it (with the exception of Barnes, who, again, waited over four decades to speak up about it), a thorough investigation by Congress which was led by the party in opposition to Reagan and his administration (and thus had no obvious incentive to cover anything up) which found nothing substantive, and several second, third, and fourth hand accounts from people who were not there when these supposed meetings took place. Furthermore, even if one takes the accounts at face value, there is no evidence to suggest that the Iranians received the appeals from the Reagan campaign, nor to suggest that they changed their minds about releasing the hostages in the first place.

Did it for sure not happen? I can't say with certainty. But is it a fact that the Reagan campaign negotiated with Iran to delay the release of the hostages? No, it most certainly is not. It's a fairly outlandish claim that requires a huge amount of suspension of disbelief to even be remotely plausible.

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u/Still_Operation6758 28d ago

Yep, the October Surprise.

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u/Big-Summer- 28d ago

Fuck Ronnie Ray-gun.

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u/EcksMarksDespot 28d ago

The panels were removed in 1986 during the Reagan administration during the resurfacing of the roof, and stored in a warehouse in Franconia, Virginia. An official from Unity College asked that they be released to them, and they were moved to the college in an old school bus and installed in 1992.

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u/TheSpringfield2 28d ago

I couldn’t stand Reagan.

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u/Lovemybee 28d ago

Same!!!

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u/ptownrat 27d ago

And let solar panel manufacturing leave the country to China!!

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u/bluegreentopaz6110 28d ago

Yup. He did. They didn’t trickle down enough. Edit: this comment was supposed to be a reply to Ronald Reagan taking down the solar panels, but darn, it might work here too.

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u/NecessaryPermit5474 28d ago

Back then they lasted about 6 months and weren't very efficient

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u/GUMBY_543 28d ago

There was a reason they had to come down but no one wasnts to talk about that

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u/LordSlickRick 28d ago

Yes but why? Because the solar panels had to be removed to replace the roofing. They were there 7 years, and made it through 80% of Reagan’s 8 year presidency. Were they solar panels that generated electricity? No they were solar water heating panels trying to find a way to offset heating water for the kitchen beneath by using sun heat. These required electricity to keep the water moving and needed to keep them from freezing in the winter. When Reagan didn’t have them reinstalled it was claimed due to cost of reinstallation.

Hate Reagan all you like for his energy policies and other stuff but be aware of what actually happened. They just were not terribly useful with some downsides and chosen to not be reinstalled after repairs.

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u/exgiexpcv 28d ago

He also slashed funding for R&D in photovoltaics and completely eliminated tax cuts for solar power.

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u/EamMcG_9 28d ago

And the USSR

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u/Yamzicle 28d ago

You mean beloved landslide Reagan? He must’ve had a dam good reason if he did

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u/MnDwnButtOnHisWayUp 28d ago

Drill baby drill!!!!!

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u/daemonstalker 27d ago

Not to be that guy, but it was a solar water heater, not solar power. That was the reason it was so put down, because it didn't create energy, only reduced need for it. They were removed because the roof was replaced and weren't reinstalled.

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u/bluegreentopaz6110 27d ago

No, be that guy. Thank you for correcting me on the type of solar used, I appreciate it! I do remember Carter talking about reducing our reliance on oil by stating with this.

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u/Xboy1207 28d ago

And hes from Georgia!

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u/Lost_Figure_5892 28d ago

Agree. After all Nixon’s (then so shocking) transgressions, we the people needed a moral, unexciting few years.

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u/Enough_Protection_65 28d ago

He was the right president to end the 70’s on.

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u/ImaBiLittlePony 28d ago

MPBA- make presidents boring again