by the architect of modern gop s anti-tax pledge norquist and argued reagan would embrace gop s points telling talking points memo, he didn t have a republican house committed to not raising taxes as president and had a pre-reagan senate. this is the republican party that reagan created. that he envisioned. let s turn to joan walsh, editor at large for salon.com. welcome to the show, joan. thanks, michael. is grover norquist engaging in some revisionist history here, joan, that really misses the point of what we clearly saw reagan doing? well, yeah, of course he is. of course he wants to claim reagan for this party that he s created that has brought the country to the brink of a debt crisis and continues to mire the country in a terrible recession, michael. he needs to say, ronald reagan wanted that. ronald reagan would have endorsed that. but i think it s actually more
by the character of modern gop s anti-tax pledge norquist and argued reagan would embrace gop s points telling talking points memo, he didn t have a republican house committed to not raising taxes as president and had a pre-reagan senate. this is the republican party that reagan created. that he envisioned. let s turn to joan walsh, editor at large for salon.com. welcome to the show, joan. thanks, michael. is grover norquist engaging in some revisionist history here, joan, that really misses the point of what we clearly saw reagan doing? well, yeah, of course he is. of course he wants to claim reagan for this party that he s created that has brought the country to the brink of a debt crisis and continues to mire the country in a terrible recession, michael. he needs to say, ronald reagan wanted that. ronald reagan would have endorsed that. but i think it s actually more interesting to look at what jeb
today s republican party or room for his successor, president george herbert walker bush. president bush s son, former florida governor jeb bush, told a group of journalists today, ronald reagan would have based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some tree of common ground, as would my dad, they would have had a hard time if you define the republican party, and i don t say as having an orthodoxy that doesn t allow for disagreement. doesn t allow for finding some common ground. bush went on to say, back to my dad s time or ronald reagan s time, they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening. reagan raised taxes. he compromised with democrats in congress. policies the republican nominee for president mitt romney won t campaign on. jeb bush s comments are now being called bizarre and foolish by the character of modern gop s anti-tax pledge norquist and