The Eleventh Commandment was not Inherited

Ronald Reagan's youngest son Ron was on Larry King last night, and he had some interesting things to say:

I mean, we've had all these awful pictures from the prison in Iraq and these sort of memos floating around about justifying torture, all this kind of stuff. And it makes you want to take a shower, you know?
...
No, no, no, no, the stuff about the religion. I thought, ha, funny, you then everybody thought I was talking about George W. Bush. And then I heard -- everybody thought I was talking about George -- but people connected with George W. Bush thought I was talking about George W. Bush. And then I began to think, maybe I was, I just didn't know it.

KING: Do you think he wears his religion on his sleeve? He certainly refers to it more than your father ever did.

REAGAN: Well, you know, there was that answer he gave to the question about, did you talk to your father about going into Iraq? No, I talked to a higher father, you know, the almighty. When you hear somebody justifying a war by citing the almighty, God, I get a little worried, frankly. The other guys do that a lot. Osama bin Laden's always talking about Allah, what Allah wants, that he's on his side. I think that's uncomfortable.

KING: Do you have thoughts on the war?

REAGAN: Sure, I have thoughts on the war.

KING: And what do you think?

REAGAN: And I think we lied our way into the war.

KING: You think it's a mistake?

REAGAN: Absolutely, a terrible mistake. Terrible foreign policy error. We didn't have to do it. It was optional. And we were lied to. The American public was lied to about WMD, the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, which is virtually nonexistent except for fleeting contacts. But they're still trying to pull that one off now, Cheney and all are out there flogging that.

KING: Can I gather from that, that you will not support this president?

REAGAN: No, I won't.

KING: Will you support his opponent?

REAGAN: I will vote for whoever the viable candidate is who can defeat George W. Bush, yes.

KING: So, you might vote for Ralph Nader?

REAGAN: If he were a viable candidate I might.

KING: So the obviously you're going to vote -- what did you think your father would say, if he were here and listening to this?

REAGAN: I don't think he would have gone into Iraq. I think he would have been much more interested in going after Osama bin Laden, who after all planned the 9/11 transactions.

KING: Would he be mad at you for saying, I'm not going to vote for this Republican?

REAGAN: I can't imagine he would be. So long as I was telling the truth he'd be okay with that. And I am. So -- no, I don't think he'd be upset. Again, these are just my personal feelings you've asked, so I'll answer.

KING: You've answered.

REAGAN: I just think it's a terrible mistake. Terrible mistake.

The ball's in your court, wingnuts. Your beloved dead president's son just compared Bush to Osama. And I love this one:

KING: Do you ever think of running for office?

REAGAN: No...

KING: You've got a pretty good name going in.

REAGAN: It seems to work for some people.

And more:

I mean, it says something awfully good about people, I think, that they would, you know, be willing to put up with that kind of thing. Waiting in the heat for hours and all that, really for just two minutes walking around a wooden box. But I think it speaks volumes of both his character, and how that was perceived by people. And again, what they have to compare it with now. I think people have -- just feel like something's not right here in this country right now. You know, I hate to keep going back to the pictures of Abu Ghraib, but they're just, you know, they're emblematic of this, there's something wrong. And that the people in there right now are not like this guy we had then. This was a standup guy. This was an honorable guy. This is not a guy who would put the end run of the Geneva Convention so he could dunk somebody in the water until they thought they were drowning. You know, that's just -- yuck. You know, you really you just want to wash yourself off when you think of that. You didn't get that feeling with him.