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You are correct...

When I hear the Hannity's and Levin's and see posters with Reagan's name as part of their screen name, screaming about how awful Bush is, compared to Reagan...

it makes me want to pull my hair out...and that is why, whenever there is a thread, I will point out that back during Reagan's time..there WAS no Free Republic...

But, I betcha those same kind of POTUS bashing threads
would be in abundance...especially during the amnesty debate.

EXACTLY SO !!!!!!!!

Though I'm in here late on this thread, I want to agree with you about how some things Reagan did was looked at by people like me who didn't really appreciate his "art of the possible" tendency.

In addition to the immigration situation, which persisted before him and through many Congress sessions where it ought to have been dealt with, I was rather upset as some items like:

1. Failure to insist that Congress implement a full 30% tax cut immediately and allowing them to phase in a 25% cut over three stupid years. I still believe he had the hammer and that he ought to have used it.
2. Failure to veto the outta sight spending domestic spending bills Congress continually sent him and that were the cause of the deficit that persisted until 1995.
3. A MAJOR FAILURE in allowing Congress to make the absolutely stupid changes to the capital gains rules which changed real estate valuation in a very predictable way and gave rise inevitably to the Savings & Loan crisis several years later.
4. Disappointment that he didn't work harder to get Jack Kemp's flat tax plan ("Do your taxes on a postcard") a fair hearing in the public arena.
5. Some foreign affairs issues more obscure, but they nagged at me constantly.
6. Energy independence needed to be promoted by espousing more nuclear energy and starting an Apollo-type program aimed at commercial nuclear fusion as soon as possible. That still needs to be done, but we're nitpicking away at this by "joining international efforts" which are rather measly compared to the magnitude of gain when this is finally achieved.
7. I hated his Supreme Court appointment of O'Conner right from the get-go. He could have made much better choices and the Senate would have finally passed them. I had no idea of Kennedy (LOVED Scalia). Since about 1972, I've felt that is the most critical area in politics to be concerned about, and O'Conner was too politically correct a choice, and there were much stronger candidates than Kennedy.
8. I almost forgot: his choice of Bush as VP was atrocious, and that he didn't ask him to leave after one term was equally poor. It was unfathomable to me that he didn't groom Kemp or one of the other spectacular conservatives to follow him in office, and instead chose Bush, who had very few conservative bones in his body. Bush'43 must have gotten many of his genes from his mom.

Reagan was not perfect, and even a true lover of him, and believer in most of what he was doing and accomplishing at the time like me, found areas that we believed he could have done even better in. I criticized him, but found more areas of agreement with him than any other President up until this President Bush.