"Racist crime policy"? Well, I have to give you credit here, you're half right. It's true that the "tough on crime" policies discriminated against black people, but it wasn't for the reasons you seem to think. Back then, it was common rhetoric among African-Americans that the government was willing to let them kill each other off. After all, most crime committed by black people is against other blacks. That's just the rule of demographics. This was intended to put black criminals away in order to help African-American communities. I agree that these policies are outdated and should be reexamined, but they weren't intended to keep the black man down.
This was explicitly racist and strongly opposed by the African-American community. It also didn't work. Fortunately, it won a bunch of votes, which is important.
"Terrible foreign policy"? Yeah, because Carter's was so great. I don't agree with everything Reagan did, but his foreign policy played a large part in ending the Cold War.
Jimmy Carter was an excellent president. Obviously, this has been forgotten for partisan reason, but it remains true. In foreign policy terms, Carter ended the Israel-Egypt conflicts, established at least rhetorically that human rights ought to be part of a responsible nation's foreign policy, negotiated the successful release of hostages from Iran and rebuilt the defence force post-Vietnam. He also in no way broke any laws, sold drugs or murdered people unlike Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Bush, Obama and Clinton.
Reagan's photo-ops had no effect on the course of the cold war except to increase the likelihood of holocaust and his votes.
"Insults and jokes"? What politician doesn't do that?
Indeed. Reagan was loved for it, though. Why? For what reason? He told off colour jokes and told the occasional hokey story, and therefore he's the "Great Communicator"? Bullshit.
I also have to concede your point on Iran-Contra. Even if he wasn't involved, it was still partly his fault for not keeping track of his own house. However, the same could be said about Obama.
Obama has neither sold drugs, nor sold weapons illegally nor had innocent civilians shot by the drug-dealing terrorist organisations he doesn't run. So, not like Reagan.
As far as I'm concerned, there are two possibilities regarding Iran-Contra
1) Ronald Reagan was never president and made no decisions. This is essentially his legal defence.
2) Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest criminals of the second half of the 20th century.
Reagan was not perfect by any means.
Probably the least president until Bush the Lesser.
