FAREWELL GIPPER
Ronald Reagan dies at 93

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his singleminded competition with the other superpower.

Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already lived a career outside Washington, one that spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an actor, a television performer, a spokesman for the General Electric Co., and a two-term governor of California.

At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican Party.

He declared at the outset, "Government is not the solution, it's the problem," although reducing that government proved harder to do in reality than in his rhetoric.

Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs that had put government on a growth spurt ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal strengthened the federal presence in the lives of average Americans.

In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and achieving arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.

In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.

Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls.

That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and his way of connecting with ordinary Americans, even as his policies infuriated the left and as his simple verities made him the butt of jokes. "Morning again in America" became his re-election campaign mantra in 1984, but typified his appeal to patriotism through both terms.

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I really ought to have hated him. Until our current President, I had thought that Reagan was the worst chief executive in US history. His gargantuan deficit spending, hostility to the poor, fear mongering, and overwhelming legacy of conservative-cool are worse than despicable. Instead, I loved him. As a young conservative in high school, his uplifting and patriotic rhetoric inspired me. My own love for America was bolstered by his example. For that, at least, even though I am now a liberal, I am eternally thankful to him. He wasn't a very good leader, but he sure as hell acted like one, and it was the performance of his life.

So long, Mr. President.

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