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Ronald Reagan: The Enduring Presidency
NewsMax ^ | 6/9/04 | Vincent Fiore

Posted on 06/09/2004 6:38:29 PM PDT by wagglebee

In 1993, one-time Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote a letter to the former president. Having become frustrated with the revisionist history that swirled around the president’s historical standing, Noonan asked him if he was worried about his future standing with historians.

Reagan replied: “I’m more than willing to submit my actions to the judgment of time. Let history decide. It usually does.”

On June 5, 2004, the nation observed the passing of Ronald Reagan into the annuals of history. But history has a way of being defined and redefined with the passage of time. Our judgment of it proceeds accordingly.

A decision or consensus upon a person or event may well take years to arrive at and yet still be hotly debated. In the case of America’s 40th president, history has already handed down its verdict, and it is decidedly one of greatness.

Born Feb. 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan started life in a four-room rental apartment in Tampico, Ill. When Reagan ascended the presidency at the age of 69 in 1981, the United States was living in its worst period of economic morass since the days of the Great Depression. That was the bad news. The really bad news was America’s standing as a geopolitical power, or lack thereof.

At home, America had lost or abstained from whatever sound economic governance had propelled it during the post-World War II years to unprecedented growth and personal wealth.

Reagan had to deal with the legacy of President Jimmy Carter, who had inflicted upon the nation such bellwether numbers as 13.5 percent inflation rate, home mortgage rates at 20 percent, and a medium price of home ownership jumping to $63,000, up from $23,000 in 1973. Gold was trading at an astounding $800 an ounce, a sign of consternation in America’s monetary policy and economic disorder.

Abroad, the picture was even graver. America had taken a backseat to the Soviet Union, which could openly state and back up its premiere superpower status over the U.S.

In 1978, Nicaragua was taken over by the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas, leading the Washington Post to dub Nicaragua as a “second” Cuba.

President Carter signed the SALT II treaty with the Soviets, a further retreat to the failed policies of Détente, metastasizing the decline of American might and will.

On Christmas Day in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. One month earlier, the American Embassy was besieged by Iranian “students,” taking 67 Americans hostage.

Toward the end of 1979, 84 percent of the electorate told the Gallup Poll that the country was on the “wrong track.” In San Francisco, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the infamous “Doomsday Clock” from nine minutes to midnight to seven, midnight being the onset of nuclear Armageddon.

This, then, was the age of Ronald Reagan.

From his first moments as president, Reagan informed the country of the challenges it faced as a whole. He criticized government as an “elite group” with a self-imposed superiority over a government for, by and of the people. Reagan tapped into the indomitable yet dormant conviction of America's belief in itself, and an aspiration to great deeds.

Reagan came into office on the platform of three basic tenants: defeating communism, cutting taxes and shrinking the size of government. While he will be celebrated for his leadership and strength in these areas, history will also show one of his greatest achievements to be his revitalization of the American spirit and the cultivation of American pride.

Reagan’s “peace thru strength” doctrine was his defining belief that a strong military at home and abroad was essential to the U.S. and its allies to prevent Soviet dominance and unchecked aggression throughout the world.

Critics will remark how the Soviet Empire was dying of its own weight and that Reagan was just in the right place at the right moment in history. To say this omits the fact that the Soviet Union spent as much as 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the military, an immense number when dealing with a much smaller economy. By contrast, Reagan devoted approximately 6 percent of the U.S. GDP to defense. (http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0999/ijpe/pj29korb.htm)

Reagan disavowed the “Keynesian” doctrine of economics, thereby creating the largest expansion of the economy in the history of the U.S. By lowering marginal tax rates, Reagan sanctified the basic idea of letting Americans keep what they earn. And though these same critics will point to the federal deficit as a barometer of the Reagan years, to do so is to ignore the doubling of federal tax revenues from $517 billion in 1980 to over $1 trillion by 1990. (www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/BG1414.cfm)

How does one remember this giant of a man, this Great Communicator of our age, within the confines of a page? What can I say that has not already been said, or likely will be? Simply put, I cannot. For trying to encapsulate the epic life of Ronald Reagan is equivalent to enumerating the very stars above that witnessed his totality in life. His life represents a cycle of heroic triumphs: from a Hollywood sound stage to the world’s grandest stage, the United States presidency.

So instead, I thought I would let him say it to you. These words are from Reagan’s farewell speech, delivered Jan. 11, 1989, from the Oval Office.

“I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.”

“And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”

“We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan Revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.” “And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Thank you, Mr. President. The country owes you a debt that cannot be repaid. But then again, listening to you as we did, you would probably say it was the American people who bore the load of your eight transformational years in office, while you simply stood aside and let America be America again. A nation weeps today in desolate sadness, but also in abundant gratitude for ever having had you to guide us.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan: February 11, 1911- June 5, 2004.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: presidentiallegacy; ronaldreagan
Reagan replied: “I’m more than willing to submit my actions to the judgment of time. Let history decide. It usually does.”

Thank you, Mr. President. The country owes you a debt that cannot be repaid. But then again, listening to you as we did, you would probably say it was the American people who bore the load of your eight transformational years in office, while you simply stood aside and let America be America again. A nation weeps today in desolate sadness, but also in abundant gratitude for ever having had you to guide us.

Godspeed President Reagan as you join our Savior on the "Shining City on the Hill"

1 posted on 06/09/2004 6:38:30 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

.


..RONNIE gave all = We have it all..

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=52519


.


2 posted on 06/09/2004 6:50:13 PM PDT by ALOHA RONNIE (Vet-Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.LZXRAY.com)
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To: wagglebee
the passing of Ronald Reagan into the annuals of history

The "annals" of history, surely.

3 posted on 06/09/2004 6:56:47 PM PDT by prion
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To: prion

You're right I missed it, blame NewsMax.


4 posted on 06/09/2004 7:05:03 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

I cannot help but think about fact that the same people who are begrudging Ronald Reagan a few days, while he's in his coffin, are the same people who didn't mind two or three days of a miniseries trashing him, and Nancy, while he was on his deathbed.


5 posted on 06/09/2004 7:59:47 PM PDT by Paul Atreides (Didn't your father tell you that unnecessary excerpting will make you go blind?)
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To: wagglebee
I think that Reagan has assumed folk hero status, as he was perceived by some in Russia during his lifetime. The Left did this with Roosevelt, thanks to Woody Guthrie, the Almanac Singers and others. But Reagan's appeal really has been to ordinary Americans, unlike various varieties of Marxists pretending to be "of the people" as they believe themselves the annointed Party elite, the "vanguard."

People out West heard Ron Reagan died,
well, they could not stay in bed,
tens of thousands, they began to come,
goin' where Ron Reagan lay dead,
goin' where Ron Reagan lay dead.

Ron Reagan, he said to Gorbie,
Gorbie, you are my man,
I'm swingin'my people to a hammerin' mood,
I've gotta lotta steel in my plan,
I've gotta lotta steel in my plan.

Pick it up, but leave out Pete Seeger and his like, make it real.j

What really drives the "annointed," in Tom Sowell's wonderful praise, mad is that Ronald Reagan was so genuinely liked by such a large majority of the American people despite the fact that he basically ignored them,albeit without rancor.

6 posted on 06/09/2004 8:18:05 PM PDT by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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