Belonging
Former President Bush: "Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now. We preferred it when he belonged to us." More here.
Former President Bush: "Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now. We preferred it when he belonged to us." More here.
This local story illustrates exactly what other national columnists have said about our attachment to Reagan the president AND Reagan the man.
Good Grief: Public Sorrow discusses our current abilities to and methods of coming to grips with loss, especially as it is illuminated in the activities surrounding our farewell to the late former president Ronald Reagan.
A multimedia online exhibit from the New York Times can be found here.
Here is a report on yesterday's activities surrounding Ronald Reagan.
Noonan worked in the Reagan White House and clearly expresses the thoughts of many in this nation in her editorial:
He was dying for years and the day came and somehow it came as a blow. Not a loss but a blow. How could this be? Maybe we were all of us more loyal to him, and to the meaning of his life, than we quite meant to be.And maybe it's more.
This was a life with size. It had heft, and meaning. And I am thinking of what Stephen Vincent Benet, a writer whom he quoted, wrote on the death of his friend Scott Fitzgerald. "You can take off your hats now, gentlemen, and I think perhaps you'd better."
Ronald Reagan was not unappreciated at the end, far from it. But he was at the beginning.
Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal by James Taranto. It's called "What Makes a President Great" and begins with this excellent argument:
Ronald Reagan has had a hard time getting his due from scholars. In 1996 Arthur Schlesinger Jr. conducted a poll of historians asking them to rank the presidents, and Mr. Reagan came in 25th out of 39, putting him in the "low average" category. The Gipper had done only slightly better in a Siena College survey two years earlier, finishing 20th out of 41--below Bill Clinton (16th), who had been in office less than two years, and well below Lyndon B. Johnson (13th). It's hard to agree that the president who won the Cold War was less successful than the one who escalated the Vietnam War.The flaw in these studies is obvious. Because academics tend to be far to the left of the general population, conservative presidents, especially recent ones, usually get short shrift. (A C-Span survey in 1999, which included "professional presidential experts" as well as historians, did rank Mr. Reagan 11th.)
Public opinion polls tell a different story.
Go here for more.
Even though I haven't done much work on my Truman blog, President Ronald Reagan's death this week is a fitting time to begin a blog in honor of the century's best Republican president. Truman gets the credit for being the century's best Democratic president. As these blogs expand, the word best will be further defined. Both men are to be commended for their character and courage of convictions.
This New York Times editorial is a great place to start:
Of all the words written upon the death of Ronald Reagan, none have recurred more frequently than "optimist." Reagan had a sunny, hopeful disposition, we've been reminded again and again.But this slights the truth. Reagan's optimism wasn't mainly a personality trait. It flowed from his core convictions and makes no sense if severed from the beliefs that gave it force.
