It’s a terrible thing when a person forgets the past, so HOH has pledged to help lawmakers never forget by introducing a segment called “For Posteriority.” Our first beneficiary is Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), a GOP presidential hopeful.

The Paul campaign conjured the image of the late President Ronald Reagan in an uber-dramatic campaign ad Tuesday.

“The establishment called him extreme and unelectable,” a deep, throaty voice intones over swelling music and stills of Reagan making faces. “They said he was the wrong man for the job. It’s why a young man named Ron Paul was one of only four Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president.”

The ad goes on to spank one of the top competitors for the GOP nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for endorsing Al Gore in the 1988 presidential race, when Perry was a Democrat. That was around the same time that Paul believed in the Republican Party so much that he left it (and Reagan) to run for president as a libertarian.

Whatever Paul felt about Reagan in 1976 and 2011, he left the GOP in 1987 because he was disenchanted with the president and the GOP. 

Tim Russert pointed out Paul’s wishy-washy love-hate thing for Reagan on “Meet the Press” in 2007. He quoted Paul as saying he wanted to “totally disassociate” himself from the administration and calling Reagan “a dramatic failure” and a traitor.

“Well, I’ll bet you any money I didn’t use the word traitor,” Paul responded. “I’ll bet you that’s somebody else, so I think that’s misleading.” Fair enough.

But he conceded that he thought the Gipper was a “failure … in many ways.” In fact, Paul used the word “failure” several times in the interview to describe Reagan’s policies.

Russert also quoted him calling President George H.W. Bush a “bum,” but that’s neither here nor there.