I remember that during Ronald Reagan’s challenge of incumbent President Gerald Ford for the 1976 GOP nomination, he got very little support from Republican politicians. Senators Paul Laxalt and Jesse Helms were practically the only such supporters Reagan had in 1976. He still made a very strong race, despite universal disdain from the media as well. This was an example of running for the presidency with real convictions.

Regarding Reagan and immigration, one can compare California today with the California of 1966. The state used to be the key to the GOP “lock” on the Presidency. Now it’s considered safe for even John Kerry. California towns that Reagan carried have become Mexican towns. See Roger McGrath’s May 10, 2003 article in TAC on what happened to the Southern California town of South Gate. It may be that Reagan didn’t see (or want to see) what was happening.

Here’s an example of Reagan’s eloquence, from the close of his last speech from the Oval Office, in January 1989. He had been speaking of his favorite image of the “Shining City on a Hill,” and then said:

“We’ve done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.

“And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

He speaks of himself—the president of the U.S. who is about to leave office—as walking off into the “city streets.” But it’s not just ordinary city streets he’s talking about, as though he were some pedestrian. It’s the streets of the Shining City on a Hill. He’s merged a mundane image of American life into something transcendent.

Perhaps it is true that Ronald Reagan does not qualify as a “great man”, it is also true that he accomplished some great things. By once and for all bucking the Left Liberal conceit that Western (read American) Democracy and Soviet Communism were morally equivalent, and acting upon this belief, the belief that they were unalterably opposed, he, more than any other 20th century American was responsible for the end of the cold war.
Reagan’s refusal to back away from the belief that lower tax rates would spur greater economic activity, thus causing total revenue to rise gave birth to another great feat - - the economic boom of the 80’s. Despite vitriolic ridicule from those who should have known better (and perhaps, did), Reagan held to his principles and helped to usher in an economic period that raised virtually every one the the country’s economic status.
These two accomplishments alone assure him a favorable place in History. Of course, knowing who is writing the History texts, and teaching the History courses in both secondary and collegiate circles, I have to believe that this well-deserved place may very well be sacrificed on the altar of Liberal Idealogy.
It is shameful to hear men who spoke so insultingly about President Reagan now hypocritically mourn his passing.

The liberal Boston papers gave the Black response to Reagan’s passing and it was in general vile. I guess they thought this would be a safe way to get their licks in on the Gipper without to much outrage from he public.

I’m not sure Reagan was an anti-borders universalist, though his “City on a Hill” imagery and the 1986 mass amnesty he signed are sometimes cited as evidence he was.

Reagan, like subsequent presidents, inherited an immigration mess, and the 1986 IRCA legislation he signed, which included the amnesty, was at least a defensible, if wrong, attempt to clean up the mess and return control of immigration back to the American people.

The ultimate failure of the good provisions of the legislation—insisted on by the Reagan Administration, if I’m not mistaken, in return for the amnesty—is, I think, more to be blamed on Wall Street Journal-style “conservatives” in Congress, like Chris Cannon of Utah, and ethnic-identity “liberals,” like Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez, than on any Reagan ideological benightedness.

And Reagan can hardly be blamed for a popular culture during his administration that never failed to depict INS agents executing, for example, a workplace raid as one step this side of Nazi storm troopers.

Furthermore, I think it’s possible to hold a Cold War view of the United States as a city on a hill—a beacon of freedom to the world—without taking the position that the city’s gates must be removed and residency in the city opened to the entire world. I think in Reagan’s view, the shining city was well-gated.

No president is perfect because no man is perfect. Reagan brought back faith and pride in America, turned our economy around, and dealt a mortal blow to the USSR.
He never realized his failings on immigration and trade because of his faith in America and the peculiarities of his background. Reagan was the son of a Catholic Irish American who became protestant and moved to a small mid-west town. Because of this upbringing, Reagan’s faith in assimilation was absolute. His formative adult years were during America’s industrial supremacy. In many ways, Reagan remained an FDR Democrat. Despite not being an intellectual, Reagan was the first neoconservative.
I would also note that Regan never rolled back the size of government or reversed the cultural decline of the 1960’s. Still, he accomplished far more than anyone would have thought in 1980.
While we are all saddened by his passing, Reagan is free from the failings of mortality. He will be missed.

I was overcome with a sense of nostalgia when I heard that Ronald Reagan had died, and almost cried. I first become involved in politics during the Reagan years and things seem so different now. Reagan may not have understood why America is (or was) great and what is needed to preserve her greatness; on the other hand he symbolized what is great about America.

I wasn’t speaking of the 1986 amnesty and “employer sanctions” law, but of Reagan’s failure to reform legal immigration. I once read an account of a Cabinet meeting early in his administration where the issue of immigration reform was discussed, and on the basis of some passing superficial slogan, Reagan just dropped the subject. He did nothing to challenge or modify the 1965 Immigration Act which opened America equally to every culture in the world and spelled the ruin of European America. That, combined with his constant invocations of open immigration as expressing the essence of America, puts him squarely on the wrong side of the immigration issue. True, he never spoke of immigration in the offensive and subversive way that the neocons do, saying that America is just an “idea” which all people in the world can effortlessly sign on to. The image in Reagan’s head was of immigrants becoming Americans in the substantive sense. But, while expressed in a benign and non-offensive way that was in conformity with traditional American ideals, Reagan’s image nevertheless did not fit the reality that was happening. At bottom, just like the 1965 legislators, and just like the neocons who came after them, he felt that everyone in the world—even Moslems—was basically like us. And that was the belief—the one-hundred percent, all-American belief—that has led us to disaster.

Mr. Jackson makes a great point in saying that Reagan may not have understood why America was great, but he symbolized what is great about America. Reagan, being born in 1911, was from another era, another America that is long gone. Though he was President in the 80’s, he was 77 when he left office. The problem of the culture wars, immigration, and American decline did not play a large part in his final years in office.

My criticisms don’t take anything away from the admiration I’ve expressed for Reagan and the sadness I feel at his parting. He was a unique figure in American history. He towers above all other political figures of our time. A man who has a grasp of principle, and brings that principle effectively and eloquently to play in his politics, and does it with grace and humor, is an extraordinary man. I agree, with President Bush, that Reagan saved the world.

I will go on to say that Reagan felt he was charged with confronting two major things in his administration: winning the cold war, and fixing the economy by killing inflation. Everything else must have seemed secondary to these threats at the time. It was not until Bush 41 opened up legal immigration even more in 1990 that we ever thought Europeans would reach minority status by 2050.

I agree with Craig Nelson: it is most unlikely that Reagan was an open borders type. It should be remembered that he did at least TRY to tackle the immigration mess. Even if he did a poor job on that particular issue, he did do great things in handling the biggest and most immediate problems in the 1980s.

I also don’t see Reagan as an open-borders universalist. Immigration as we know it today, along with its problems, was a blip on the body-politic in 1980. This is subjective on my part, but I believe that if Reagan was faced with the immigration problems of 2004 in 1980 I think he would have acted in the best interests of America and solved the problem, unlike Bush 41, Clinton, or Bush 43, who certainly should have done something after his administration.

I admire Reagan greatly, and I think his example can encourage us to keep on fighting for our principles. Consider that he ran for the Republican nomination twice (1968 and 1976). After the latter defeat, Gerald Ford triumphantly informed Reagan that “You (conservatives) are not a majority in this party and you are certainly not a majority in this country”. Four years later, Reagan won the presidency. It’s true that his optimism blinded his eyes to the growing cultural problems of the nation (including the National Question). But his example does provide evidence that it is still possible to turn things around. Furthermore,when you compare Reagan’s speaking style with the PC slogans spouted by the Oval Office’s present occupant, it is very refreshing indeed. By the way, Reagan did not pander to Hispanics, but still won a higher percentage of the Hispanic vote than Bush does.

Mr. Auster’s said it all for me. The press today is calling him “the first right-wing president in 50 years”! Who was the other one—Ike? Ike, a right-winger?

Lately, I have been performing one of my most favorite classic movie scores, the Erik Wolfgang Korngold theme from the 1942 epic, “King’s Row”—coincidentally the film with his best acting. I nearly broke down playing it at a concert last night in front of 100 elderly, mostly Demos. It is partly a march but all-inspiring. I had the chance to play for him once in Santa Barbara at The Western White House across from The Sheraton for the Press Corps Thanksgiving Day Dinner/Party. He couldn’t make it, and Larry Speaks showed up instead.

The two mistakes he made—discounting Iran-Contra, which most conservatives were solidly behind him for and which today are tame compared to what Clinton did (in selling the country out to his coffer-fillers, the Red Chinese for giving them our missle technology)—were 1) removing our troops after 300 were blown up, inspiring a young OBL and other Arab skanks and 2) signing the 1986 amnesty act. I don’t yet know how I feel about him en toto. He was a leader and makes Bush look like an amateur. But I need to read more about how “emboldened” Arab extremists like OBL became as a result of Mr. Reagan’s removing our troops. I have read that illegal entry increased after the 1986 bill was signed but I can’t remember “where” I’ve read it.

“He Rewrote the Script.”

That was the headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday. I challenge anybody to find a better one in any of the world’s other papers. (Most were rather dull.) As our host put it, “…he saw things and possibilities that other people did not see, and he led the world toward those possibilities.” Actor? No, a first-rate script doctor.

By “illegal entry”, I am referring to our Southern Border invasion going on as I write this.

I don’t think Reagan’s mistake in Lebanon was pulling out. I think it was being there in the first place. Before the suicide bombing, I observed that we had no real mission other than standing around and “showing the flag”. This lack of mission makes any casualties unacceptable, hence the pullout.

David Hackworth has revealed that one of the politically correct politicians who pass for “generals” was responsible for having the Marine sentries at the gates of the compound in Beirut be virtually unarmed. They had to stand there with no ammunition cartridges in their M-16 rifles, because the PC general had declared that they would look too warlike otherwise, and this was a peacekeeping mission. We did not want to look offensive to the locals, you see. So, when the truck bombers began accelerating towards the gate to crash it, we had unarmed guards at the gate trying to load their weapons at the last second.

Peter Brimelow calls Ronald Reagan the greatest American president of the 20th century: http://www.vdare.com/pb/rwr_memoriam.htm. It is hard not to agree, although I have a soft spot for Calvin Coolidge, the last American president who restrained himself in office as the Constitution requires. Mr. Brimelow makes the good point that Reagan handled the issues he chose to tackle (Communism, inflation) so well that we don’t really think of them as problems any more.

Certainly, in the postwar world we have lived in, Reagan stands out as a giant compared to all presidents since Franklin Roosevelt (whom I do not admire, but whose legacy is all-important). Today’s Republican Party is rotting, but there is still some slight ray of hope as long as the GOP does not completely abandon Reagan’s memory. It is noteworthy that the presidential memory Democrats cling to is John Kennedy, America’s most lightweight and probably most morally corrupt president (the probably is required only because of Clinton).

Others have criticized President Reagan - justifiably - for doing nothing, with the best of intentions, about the National Question. Much as I liked and admire Ronald Reagan, he does have one other thing to answer for: if he had not picked GHW Bush as his running mate in 1980, we would have had neither George Bush as president, and we would not be suffering from this crop of Bushes that plagues us today.

Still, I am grateful to Ronald Reagan. He was the only presidential candidate I voted for (twice), as opposed to voting Republican tactically against the Democrat. HRS

Among Reagan’s sins, what about his appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor? Was it so urgent to have a woman on the Court that he had to pick this little moderate Republican, this intellectual mouse, who has become a curse on the Republic? Think, e.g., of her majority opinion in Grutter, and her appeal to foreign public opinion as a basis of constitutional adjudication. Reagan ran as a strong anti-Roe v. Wade candidate, and then his first appointment to the Supreme Court was someone who was not pro-life. That was a major betrayal.

If he had been more serious, he would have told the country, “I wanted very much to find a female to appoint to the Court, but I can find no female judge in America who shares my strict constructionist views. It would be wrong to pick a woman just for the sake of picking a woman. Therefore the appointment of a woman justice will have to wait.” But he didn’t do that. His need to put a woman on the Court trumped principle. And we’re living with the consequences.

Touché, Mr. Auster. And while we’re at it, we shouldn’t forget Anthony Kennedy, who is almost as egregious as O’Connor.

There are other things to criticize President Reagan for: he did not fight affirmative action (as Mr. Auster notes about Justice O’Connor, he practiced it); he misread the immigration crisis and his amnesty made it worse; he did not resist the feminization of the armed forces, other than maintaining the combat exemption; and we went back into Lebanon without having thought it through.

I think that will all figure in the appraisal of his legacy, which it is probably still too early to make. On the issues he considered critical, he was forceful and decisive. On those that did not engage his attention, he was… inattentive.

One thing that I hope will not become part of Ronald Reagan’s legacy is Nancy Reagan’s commitment to stem-cell research, including embryonic, understandable though that is given Reagan’s affliction. There is promise in adult stem-cell research that does not require abandoning a commitment to life in the way that exploiting embryonic human beings does. President Reagan may not have been as active in opposition to abortion as I would have liked, but he was consistently pro-life. I like to think that he would have distinguished between licit adult and illicit embryonic research. Please forgive the digression. HRS

When modern politicians talk, it seems that they are contemptous of their listeners. Gore talks to Americans as one ordinarily talks to small children, Clinton transparently lies and strokes his listeners ego. Current resident of the White House, a Texan style crony capitalist, blathers needlessly about Religion of Peace, Islam means Peace and similar transparent nonsense.

I have never felt that Reagan was contemptous of his listeners. One feels that he talked in virtually the same way and the same things to his family, friends, politicians and aids.
In short, he didn’t disrespect Americans.

Re David Levin’s remarks: Ike WAS a right-winger by today’s standards, probably more so than Reagan in some ways. For his approach to the immigration problem, vide Operation Wetback! Having disagreed on that point, let me say that I too am a great admirer of “Kings Row,” and of Korngold’s glorious music.

I can’t really add to the fine remarks here - especially those of Mssrs. Auster and Sutherland. Though he had failings, like all of us, President Reagan was courageous in facing down the Soviet Empire and saw it for what it really was - evil. The left, of course, will always hate him - even if they offer praise - for it.

There’s a headline over at Jewish World Review that quoted the remark made upon Lincoln’s passing: Now he belongs to the ages. Requiescat in Pace, President Reagan.

Alan Levine gave me pause to read up on Operation Wetback, Ike’s initiative together with the then Mexican president. I had forgotten about that, and found some incredible praise for Ike by Pat Buchanan. The problem with Operation Wetback was, Ike didn’t keep our soldiers on the Southern Border and those million illegals eventually broke right back into the country. Today, the Mexican president is hardly our friend and his government actively promotes illegal entry whether part of La Reconquista or for economic reasons (getting rid of many of the very poor and uneducated).

My biggest problem with Ike is what how he influenced FDR to stop Patton from going into Czechoslovakia and Hungary to take them before the Russians did. Patton had the Germans on the run. That action assured those two countries of living under Soviet-style Communism for almost 50 years. Also, his decision with Overlord to send our fathers onto Omaha Beach in rough surf and with high tide approaching and with our planes hardly touching German pillbox installations on the cliffs there caused the slaughter of many American men—while the Canadians and British were having a much easier time at Juno and Sword Beaches.

If I remember rightly, illegal immigration across the Mexican frontier did not revive for many years after Wetback. I concede Ike was guilty of misjudgment in not going further into Czechoslovakia in April 1945; it is ridiculous to suggest that he could have gone into Hungary — the Soviets were already at Vienna. He was hardly responsible for the fact that Omaha was the most heavily held beach of all. The fact that the air and naval supporting fires all missed was due primarily to the weather. That could only have been avoided by waiting several weeks! Moreover, the bad weather, while costing heavily casualties at Omaha, put the Germans off their guard. On a night with good weather they would have been more alert and spotted the invasion fleet well out at sea.

A correspondent to whom I had sent my recent articles on Reagan writes:

“Thank you for sending me your articles. They are a very fair-minded assessment of Reagan and his impact, especially given the hagiography that now surrounds him. It’s like he’s entering Lenin’s mausoleum rather than just passing on to the Lord like any normal human being.”