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What matters is how the public perceives the issue at the time of the election. Ditto the Iranian hostage crisis. Those hostages were not yet free by the time

What matters is how the public perceives the issue at the time of the election. Ditto the Iranian hostage crisis. Those hostages were not yet free by the time of the 1980 election. You can argue their eventually release in 1981 as a result of Carter's actions and that Reagan doesn't deserve credit for it, but that doesn't change the way the public perceived the situation in 1980.

lupire 5y ago
That's what mattered for the election. Not what matters for understanding history and trying to stop repeating the same terrible mistakes.
DonHopkins 5y ago
What matters now is that disingenuous Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are still pushing the bald faced lie that Reagan instead of Carter deserves credit for the release of the hostages. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-hostage-negotiation https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-hostage-n... >The Republican myth of Ronald Reagan and the Iran hostages, debunked [...] >"When I become president," Rubio claimed, "it will be like Ronald Reagan, where as soon as he took office, the hostages were released from Iran," because "our adversaries around the world will know that America is no longer under the command of someone weak like Barack Obama." >Ted Cruz gave a remarkably similar statement the same day on Fox News, saying that the temporary seizure of the US sailors by Iran was "the direct result of the weakness of this presidency," and that "it’s worth remembering, this same nation, Iran, in 1981 released our hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office." >The problem with this story: Iran released the embassy hostages because of Carter's negotiations, not in spite of them. [...] >But Carter and his negotiators kept working through the very end of his presidency, and eventually, at the last possible moment, they succeeded. On January 19, 1981, the US and Iran signed the Algiers Accords, an agreement brokered by the Algerian government that secured the hostages' release in exchange for concessions by the US, including sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and the creation of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal that would remove cases against Iran from US courts. >The hostages were released the following day, January 20, 1981 — the day Reagan was inaugurated. >In other words, Rubio and Cruz's version of events is straight-up false. The hostages were released in exchange for sizable concessions from the United States — exactly the sort of process they deride as weak — and not because Ronald Reagan was a tough and scary gentleman whose mere presence in the Oval Office panicked Khomeini into capitulating. [...]

lupire 5y ago

That's what mattered for the election. Not what matters for understanding history and trying to stop repeating the same terrible mistakes.

DonHopkins 5y ago

What matters now is that disingenuous Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are still pushing the bald faced lie that Reagan instead of Carter deserves credit for the release of the hostages. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-hostage-negotiation https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-hostage-n... >The Republican myth of Ronald Reagan and the Iran hostages, debunked [...] >"When I become president," Rubio claimed, "it will be like Ronald Reagan, where as soon as he took office, the hostages were released from Iran," because "our adversaries around the world will know that America is no longer under the command of someone weak like Barack Obama." >Ted Cruz gave a remarkably similar statement the same day on Fox News, saying that the temporary seizure of the US sailors by Iran was "the direct result of the weakness of this presidency," and that "it’s worth remembering, this same nation, Iran, in 1981 released our hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office." >The problem with this story: Iran released the embassy hostages because of Carter's negotiations, not in spite of them. [...] >But Carter and his negotiators kept working through the very end of his presidency, and eventually, at the last possible moment, they succeeded. On January 19, 1981, the US and Iran signed the Algiers Accords, an agreement brokered by the Algerian government that secured the hostages' release in exchange for concessions by the US, including sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and the creation of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal that would remove cases against Iran from US courts. >The hostages were released the following day, January 20, 1981 — the day Reagan was inaugurated. >In other words, Rubio and Cruz's version of events is straight-up false. The hostages were released in exchange for sizable concessions from the United States — exactly the sort of process they deride as weak — and not because Ronald Reagan was a tough and scary gentleman whose mere presence in the Oval Office panicked Khomeini into capitulating. [...]