Posted on 06/15/2004 1:16:04 PM PDT by knighthawk
The atmosphere was cheerful, almost festive, among those arriving early for Ronald Reagan's memorial service at the National Cathedral, just as it was on the lines of those waiting to view his flag-draped casket at the Reagan Library and the Capitol. Then, 40 minutes before the ceremony, when the achingly beautiful music began, people sat quietly and somberly, some with tears in their eyes. With his interment on the opposite coast, on a gentle hill overlooking the Pacific, the question now is: How will history judge his stewardship?
Perhaps more than any moment in last week's long goodbye, the service at the National Cathedral helped answer that. Speakers read from the Sermon on the Mount (''a city that is set on a hill'') and from John Winthrop's 1630 sermon about ''a city upon a hill'' -- the basis for Reagan's belief that America is ''a shining city on a hill,'' a special and specially good nation. Margaret Thatcher, Brian Mulroney and George H.W. Bush described his strong convictions and perseverance, his belief in freedom and opposition to tyranny.
It was left to George W. Bush to put in perspective Reagan's long life -- his lifespan covered 43 percent of the time from the inauguration of George Washington to today. He described the boy in a small town reading books and saving people as a lifeguard, the young man working as a radio announcer and a movie actor, the mature actor speaking out on public affairs. Bush quoted William F. Buckley in the 1960s: ''Reagan is indisputably a part of America.''
A very large part of America: As John Kerry noted last week in a graceful statement, Reagan's life covered ''most of the American century.'' Growing up in the 1920s in Dixon, 124 miles west of Chicago, Reagan listened to Chicago radio stations, the pioneers in the medium, broadcasting the first situation comedies, sports broadcasts and national political party convention reports. Ambitious to succeed, the young Reagan went off to college, then made a career in radio, then passed a screen test and became a movie star.
The 1920s and 1930s radio and 1930s and 1940s movies were universal media, aimed at all Americans. Those movies were the strongest popular culture since Dickens, and for many, still define the American character. Ronald Reagan was suffused with their spirit and brought it -- or, rather, brought it back -- to American politics.
Brought it back, because it was the same spirit brought to politics by Franklin Roosevelt, for whom Reagan voted four times. Roosevelt and Reagan both came to office when people had given up on the American economy, and both brought it back toward prosperity and abundance: Roosevelt by expanding government, Reagan by cutting taxes and curbing inflation, freeing the economy to produce the largely unpredicted surge of prosperity of the last 20 years.
Roosevelt and Reagan as presidents both faced a world where totalitarian regimes were on the march and where the United States seemed helpless to stop them. Roosevelt led the American people to victory and the destruction of Nazism and took steps to keep the peace in the postwar world he did not live to see. Reagan pushed the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse and had the satisfaction of watching as the Berlin Wall fell and Moscow's empire crumbled.
Reagan always admired Roosevelt, even as he came to oppose many of his policies, and there were similarities in their character. Both were optimistic and friendly and seemed open, yet both had hard cores inaccessible even to their closest aides: cold steel beneath the smiles. Both had courage, ''grace under pressure,'' as Lady Thatcher said. Roosevelt, at his speeches, stood in steel braces and with great effort, in enormous pain, walked forward to the microphone and addressed the nation. Reagan, after he was shot, stood and walked from the ambulance into the hospital, taking care to button his jacket, then collapsed when he was out of camera range. The two men stand now, in history, the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century.
Ping
I remember the 1980s as being a time when Japanese-Americans prospered greatly, not a time they spent in internment camps.
I remember the 1980s as a time when big government was challenged, not grown.
I also remember the 1980s as a time when we were in an arms race with the Soviets, not in league with them.
I would never compare Ronald Reagan to FDR. The greatest expansion of socialism in this country's history occurred under FDR. Socialism was not President Reagan's thing.
Ronald Reagan was "The Great Communicator", Bill Clinton was "The Great Fornicator" and John Kerry is and always will be "The Great Capitulator".
MAJOR FDR rehabilitation.
The democrats must be desperate to repair the reality encroaching on their "heroes". It seems as time passes reality reveals the bad of democrats. For FDR: his illness, socialism, courtpacking scandal, his wife running the show (love letters to her female friend). For JFK: his putting the USA in vietnam, womanizing and Republican style tax cuts. Carter's pro communism help, and sinister behavior after leaving office.
On the other hand Republicans seem to fair better because the BS gets removed.
It was FDR reacting to an attack. Reagan forged a new world.
"MAJOR FDR rehabilitation."
Like it or not, when you review the various surveys of Presidential rankings, FDR consistently ranks high, meaning in the top 5. For example
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/presrankings1.html
The highest that I have seen President Reagan is #8.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/hail/rankings.html
C-Span even ranked LBJ (#10) ahead of Reagan (#11). I was stunned at that result.
http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/
My guess is that Reagan's ranking will go up over time. I have read that that is a rather common occurrence. I know that, for my part, all the coverage of last week has really put Mr. Reagan's legacy into clearer focus for me.
The difference is that now Reagan and FDR are mention in the same breath. Democrats USED to be able to claim FDR supremacy. Now that is no longer the case. Democrats are now faced with a contender to that title. Historians will debate the Reagan vs FDR. Historians will be able to examine Reagan as finishing the mess left by FDR from his weakness at Yalta.
If anything it is the Final Reagan job creation program. Historians will have decades of scholarly papers to write contradicting each other.
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