Over the years I've made no bones about my opposition to the Reagan philosophy of government in general and to his performance as a president in specific. As one other poster has remarked, we could have and should have done better. In that vein, one could argue that a comic book would be an appropriate vehicle for presenting his history. It is quite hard for me to take seriously a man who spent his early political carreer hiding in bushes and ratting about who went to which Hollywood party.

That said, while I was relieved when the Reagan years finally came to an end, and while I further often regarded his life as a comic book of sorts, I could not bring myself to take any pleasure or amusement in his passing. There are few people in this earthly existence for whom Alzheimers would be a fitting end. My sympathies went out to his family, who mourned the passing of a man, who at the end, no longer even recognized his mourners. No one I know deserves to die in that manner. And no one should have to go through the anguish of a family watching helplessly as it happens to one of their own.

In the final analysis, I imagine I will view Ronald Reagan as the kindly (at least in his public personna), overly conservative for my liking, but amicable old man who lived next door, who just should not have been elected president.

You're certainly entitled to your opinions, and I respect that you didn't shit all over him like a lot of posters are doing, but who would you have had elected - Carter? Mondale? How about Dukakis? There is no other person in the country who could have disarmed and befriended the Soviets like he did.

Grace for grace...you showed a degree of respect for me, and I wish to return the gesture. You raise a worthy question. Loath as I am to say it, the Democratic party was decidedly lackluster in those days (some will say nothing has changed in that respect, but that's a topic for another day). Who else indeed?

That said, I offer one further opinion. It is my belief that the Soviet Union was collapsing under its own weight and needed very little help from us. Also, I point out that disarmament is a process that is still unfolding.

But...

We will never know how things might have transpired, had Reagan not come to power.

Thanks for your thoughts, in any case.

Politics can be civil.

Disclosure - I wasn't of voting age when Reagan was president, so my opinions are formed from those around me rather than my own experiences. My recollection of Reagan was of a distinct sense of patriotism I felt while he was in office. In fact it was actually Clinton where my sense of patriotism waned in the wake of the Lewinsky witch-hunt. I felt that was the point when cynicism took over. I felt Clinton did a decent job as a president, shame the Republican party crushed him.

That said, I offer one further opinion. It is my belief that the Soviet Union was collapsing under its own weight and needed very little help from us. Also, I point out that disarmament is a process that is still unfolding.

This is the general assessment of most objective historians. I'll never understand why Reagan is lauded for simply being president during a period when the Russian economy was already at a breaking point. It wouldn't have mattered who was president at the time and Gorbachev hardly torn down the Berlin Wall because of Reagan's propagandizing.

Eigenvector,

I wasn't of voting age either, but my memories of the Reagan era were of a dark, dim period where there was a real fear that we could be destroyed in a nuclear war. The patriotism was of a knee-jerk variety subject to the borderline hysteria we all felt at the rising tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. Reagan's rhetoric didn't foster much comfort or safety either. I always felt his were the sunny bedtime stories one told the children before suffocating them with the pillow....and yes, I actually consider myself a Republican, but not one who needs a cult of personality from which to tout a conservative philosophy.

Assezmalicieux:

That said, I offer one further opinion. It is my belief that the Soviet Union was collapsing under its own weight and needed very little help from us. Also, I point out that disarmament is a process that is still unfolding.

This is the general assessment of most objective historians. I'll never understand why Reagan is lauded for simply being president during a period when the Russian economy was already at a breaking point. It wouldn't have mattered who was president at the time and Gorbachev hardly torn down the Berlin Wall because of Reagan's propagandizing.

Go back and read things that were written during the 70's and 80's. The liberals were all telling us the Soviets were surpassing us, that their military had an insurmountable lead, that we had better learn to accommodate the new world order, etc etc.

Reagan was the lunatic who was going to get us all killed by making them mad. He was insane to think we could possibly hope to beat them back. Now, of course, he was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Typical.

I recall the time.

Crouching under our desks, pushed into a phalanx under the windows to protect from glass & blast damadge. The civil defense drills. The Berlin Airlift. The commie hysteria. The Enemy pictured as faceless automations of Hive like 'states', not 'Free' like us. The Palestine, fighting, Jewish rebels, Exodus the movie, Israel and masses of refugees forced from their homes, The Korean War, Eisenhower ending the Korean war, refuseing to get involved in Viet nam except to support logisticly our french ally, building the interstates instead, Kennedy & the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuba missle crisis- we thought it was the end then you bet! Viet Nam getting our toes in the water,Johnson and all out war...

then Nixon & Detente w/ the Soviets, our new partnership with China, the reduction in stratigic nuclear weapons. The opening up of lucrative trade with the Soviet Union & China. The end of the Draft, the end of Viet nam war, we got EPA, OSHA, NHTSB, safe clean places to work in, a clean enviroment, safer autos and world, New dreams of peace, health plans and a wonderfull society, a glorious future for mankind....oops.... then Ford, Carter & the Cold War is back and HOT! We got the movies Top Gun out. Our naval warships at sea are charging Soviet ships and playing chicken, ramming them sometimes, our Air Recon's are pushing into Soviet airspace daring them to do something, all our news is about the huge threat posed by the Soviets simply by the existence of their military machine, and how they will be forced to attack us eventully or collaspe, so war is inevitable the CIA told us get ready, popular games are released called The Next War which is the various ways the US will be defeated (it cannot win) & we elected Reagan...

I see things different maybe, but to me, the Republicans and Democrats, the upper leadership, they are all the same, since 1974. There is no significant difference on economic and foreign policy. Its just a choice on who to implement policies you have no say in.

Eisenhower, and Nixon, last champions of the average guy in America.

Go back and read things that were written during the 70's and 80's. The liberals were all telling us the Soviets were surpassing us, that their military had an insurmountable lead, that we had better learn to accommodate the new world order, etc etc.

I remember all that, TC. lol And it's that kind of touchy feely defeatism is why I reject liberal ideology. However, that said, Reagan's rhetoric didn't exactly help the situation either. There used to be something called diplomancy...where you reach out across the aisle and convince the moderate to conservative Democrats to support your platform. I've always felt, particularly in hindsight, that a lot of Reagan's rhetoric was strictly neo Cold War claptrap; it added nothing to our national sense of security and was a progenitor of our current rule by fear tactics that Bush and company use to keep us in line. As much as we may not agree with the liberals, we still have to work with them. I'd rather fight them fair than fight them dirty, because dirty always leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the people we most need on our side.

Reagan was the lunatic who was going to get us all killed by making them mad. He was insane to think we could possibly hope to beat them back. Now, of course, he was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Typical.

In the case of the Soviet Union, he was in the right place at the right time. Russian archives demonstrate the dire economic status of the Soviet Union before Reagan took office. One man cannot affect the demise of an entire nation in the course of eight years. I like hagiography as much as the next person, but I'm also an objective reader of history. The demise of the Soviet Union would have occurred with our without Reagan one way or the other.

Assezmalicieux:

Go back and read things that were written during the 70's and 80's. The liberals were all telling us the Soviets were surpassing us, that their military had an insurmountable lead, that we had better learn to accommodate the new world order, etc etc.

I remember all that, TC. lol And it's that kind of touchy feely defeatism is why I reject liberal ideology. However, that said, Reagan's rhetoric didn't exactly help the situation either. There used to be something called diplomancy...where you reach out across the aisle and convince the moderate to conservative Democrats to support your platform. I've always felt, particularly in hindsight, that a lot of Reagan's rhetoric was strictly neo Cold War claptrap; it added nothing to our national sense of security and was a progenitor of our current rule by fear tactics that Bush and company use to keep us in line. As much as we may not agree with the liberals, we still have to work with them. I'd rather fight them fair than fight them dirty, because dirty always leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the people we most need on our side.

Reagan was the lunatic who was going to get us all killed by making them mad. He was insane to think we could possibly hope to beat them back. Now, of course, he was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Typical.

In the case of the Soviet Union, he was in the right place at the right time. Russian archives demonstrate the dire economic status of the Soviet Union before Reagan took office. One man cannot affect the demise of an entire nation in the course of eight years. I like hagiography as much as the next person, but I'm also an objective reader of history. The demise of the Soviet Union would have occurred with our without Reagan one way or the other.

Look, you and I agree that communism is bound to fail. Socialism never, ever works. Period.

But that does not mean that they weren't hurried along to that fate.

Eisenhower, and Nixon, last champions of the average guy in America.

Power to the people, maaaan!

LOL!