Why did she lie about Nancy Reagan's involvement with the AIDS crisis? Why THAT lie?

[MADem]

29. Who is saying that the Reagans did any "leading?"

I don't think they were "leaders."

Why not look at what was actually said, shall we? "Starting a national conversation" can happen in a lot of ways.

Trayvon Martin didn't set out to start a "national conversation" about gun violence against black children--he set out for some candy and iced tea. He ended up being a poster child for the issue, though.


Some people do it by truculent inaction--as is the case with Ronald Reagan, who clearly had a problem with gay men, and often commented that he thought their chickens were coming home to roost as a consequence of their conduct. He was an idiot, but he DID create an environment where he became a foil for some serious activism and pushback that might not have happened had he been less poutraged and moralistic.

And, as his and Nancy's son says, his wife DID influence change within the administration--and that was probably because she felt guilty about abandoning her good buddy Rock Hudson.

In any event, I think I'll take young Ron Reagan's word when it comes to what his mother did and didn't do on this issue, and not the proclamations of people who take issue with HRC for political reasons. I think you need to actually READ what I write, too--the context of those plays/films IS "the agony." Without that agony those opuses would not have been created.

Had there been benign neglect, or even underfunding, there would have been no activism, no pushback--at least not at the level that Liz Taylor, et.al., managed to create.