A lot of us here are old enough to actually remember the seventies, the shambles the country was in after half a century of liberal rule (including the liberal Republicans Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard "we're all Keynesians on this bus" Nixon, and Gerald "WIN" Ford). Even more of us are old enough to remember Ronald Reagan. Reagan made some bad decisions (Beirut, Sandra Day O'Connor); and he suffered some serious disappointments and setbacks. But the thing about Reagan was that he never lost heart. He was the cheerful warrior. If he lost a battle, he took the best compromise...