Maybe Obama should have read Victor Hanson's article/op-ed piece in my morning paper:
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/...onal/story/184120.html
Some advice to GOP: Don't beatify Reagan
Ronald Reagan's presidency was a great success. He rebuilt a chaotic U.S. military and helped end the Cold War. Reagan's tax cuts in 1981 spurred growth and redefined the relationship between U.S. citizens and their government. And he appointed conservative federal judges and bureaucrats who tried to roll back the half-century trend of expanded governmental control over our lives.
Reagan's nice-guy charm made it difficult for even his critics to stay angry with him for long. But he was no mere smiling dunce, as liberal intellectuals used to snicker. His private papers and diaries reveal that he was widely informed, read voraciously, drew on a powerful intellect and was an effective writer.
It is no wonder that conservative leaders constantly evoke Reagan's successful presidency. In contrast, they rarely hearken to the uprightness of the one-term Gerald Ford, or praise the foreign-policy accomplishments of the two Bush Republican presidencies.
Instead, the candidates try to "out-Reagan" each other by claiming they alone are the true Reaganites while their primary rivals are too liberal, flip-floppers or without consistent conservative principles.
In short, Reagan has been beatified, as if above the lapses and contradictions of today's candidates. The result is that conservatives are placing unrealistic requirements of perfection on Reagan's would-be successors.
They have forgotten that Reagan -- facing spiraling deficits, sinking poll ratings and a hostile Congress -- signed legislation raising payroll, income and gasoline taxes, some among the largest in history. He promised to limit government and eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy. Instead, he made government grow by adding a secretary of veteran affairs.
Two of his Supreme Court choices, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, were far more liberal than George W. Bush's picks -- the strict constructionists John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Reagan's 1986 immigration bill turned out to be the most liberal amnesty for illegal immigrants in our nation's history, and set the stage for the present problem of 12 million immigrants here unlawfully.
Republicans forget all this -- but so do Democrats, who try to perpetuate an unflattering myth of Reagan as a right-wing reactionary.
In foreign affairs, Reagan was not always judicious. He shocked Cold Warriors by advocating complete nuclear disarmament at his Reykjavik summit with Mikhail Gorbachev. In the middle of Lebanon's civil war, he first put U.S. troops into a crossfire. Then, when 241 Marines were blown up, he withdrew them. That about-face, and the failure to retaliate in serious fashion, helped embolden Hezbollah's terrorism for decades. The Iran-Contra scandal exploded when a few rogue officials sold state-of-the-art missiles under the table to terrorist-sponsoring Iran, and prompted talk of impeachment.
In other words, even great presidents such as Ronald Reagan make mistakes. He sometimes reversed positions, played politics and baffled his conservative base -- some of the charges now leveled at Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
What is the real Reagan legacy? It is mostly the Great Communicator's ability to distill complex problems, offer a more conservative solution than America was used to or ready for, and then enact difficult change through a brilliant turn of phrase.
Candidates need to separate the Reagan myth -- the perfect conservative -- from the real man. The five serious GOP candidates should call on the spirit and principled inspiration of Ronald Reagan for guidance about new problems in the same way they evoke Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt.
Hanson is an historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
I like that he points out some of the good things Reagan managed to accomplish during his two terms in office, and I like even more that he points ouf some of the things Reagan fucked up during that same two terms...to help the conservatives here, I ever so helpfully added some underlining and bolding for ya...