"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
The Reagan Legacy
Posted 11:54 p.m., June 7, 2004
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"We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. And it's been said that if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with great astonishment that those that had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening."
-- Ronald Reagan, October 1964
... "Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev--open this gate. Mr. Gorbechev--tear down this wall."
-- Ronald Reagan, June 1987
I had Ed Schultz's radio show on at work today, and I was more than a little disappointed to hear all those phone-in lefties excoriating the memory of Ronald Reagan, using words like "I hated Reagan" and "worst president in history."
At the same time, I was pretty impressed with Schultz himself, a hard-left Democrat who nonetheless refused to bend to pretty intense pressure from his listeners to spend the day after Reagan's death dredging up nastiness and bile about the man.
It led to a little email exchange between the two of us, which I'll reproduce here:
Ed:As often as I've agreed with you, I've disagreed with you--yet I somehow keep coming back to listen to you every day. As a needed alternative to Rush and Hannity, I guess I'd take just about anything.
I would like to say I admire you sticking to your guns on not blasting Ronald Reagan today. I disagreed with him on plenty--the deficits, Nicaragua, Star Wars, the list is too long to detail. But I do appreciate the optimism that he brought to the national dialogue--even if I agree with the New York Times editorial writers that his simple vision has turned our politics simplistic.
Bottom line, Ronald Reagan was a good and decent man who stood for what he believed. A lot of those things I think were ultimately damaging, but let's remember that Americans elected him overwhelmingly and that 63 percent of us looked at his presidency favorably when it was over.
The callers I have heard today saying you should be eviscerating the president's corpse represent for me the reason why I cannot call myself a liberal. They are essentially telling me that I have no real right to respect this president's life or his passing and that I should get in lock step with their views. Sorry, lefties, can't go there. I salute my flag at half-staff proudly today.
-- Kevin Featherly
...
Kevin....
God bless ya...we're on the same page here...
-- Ed Schultz
I Was Right, But I Was Wrong
It should be clear that I was not a Reagan fan during the 1980s. I was suspicious of the deficit spending, suspicious of the virulent anticommunism and talk of Evil Empires that then seemed to me a remnant of a bygone age. I was suspicious of the reaction of all those Reagan Democrats, who I was convinced were voting against their own interests out of deference to the man's slightly befuddled, grandfatherly image. I was mystified, angered even, by the nation's muffled reaction to Irangate.
Twenty years on, I think it's pretty clear that on some of that, I was right.
Certainly the farm belt was lured into supporting an administration that did not have its best interest at heart. And I was right to worry about all that deficit spending; according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, current Vice President Dick Cheney invoked that legacy to justify a second batch of massive tax cuts for the wealthy after the 2002 midterm elections. Irangate really was a massive setback for the nation, inflaming anti-American hatred in the Middle East and helping to set the stage for our current conflicts.
Further, I was right, I am convinced, about my concerns at the time that the president was naive, if not negligent, about the race issues in the United States--an attitude that lingers, I think partly due to his influence, in some members of our citizenry.
But there were aspects about Reagan that I now believe I was wrong about. I didn't believe it then, but I now think it is at least reasonable to believe, as the historian Michael Beschloss has put it, that Reagan at least accelerated the end of the Cold War. I don't think he ended it, I do think Gorbachev deserves credit for not turning to his Army instead of letting his regime gently slip out of power.
But Reagan does deserve credit for helping to end the standoff between the superpowers. More, I think, he deserves lasting credit--and some of the idolatry directed at him by today's conservatives--for his ability to impart a sense of optimism, coupled with his sense of certainty in the hope and promise of what it is to be American. That rare quality is what drew so many to him, ultimately even those like myself who opposed much of what he stood for.
Ken Duberstein, the GOP operative and former Reagan administration insider, put it pretty aptly tonight in his appearance on ABC-TV's "Nightline."
"What is interesting about Reagan is he came to the presidency with strong convictions. Nothing had to be poll-tested. He knew which way he wanted to lead the country."
-- Ken Duberstein
The Reagan Effect
Ultimately, I think that Reagan's greatest attribute as president was his pragmatic ability to compromise, to yield on the most precious of his ideological passions in the interest of both expediency and for the good of the nation. I heard James Baker, Reagan's former Treasury Secretary and Chief of Staff, say quite tellingly that Reagan told him, "I'd rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the falls with my flag flying."
It's a lesson our current president could learn from.
I'll quote the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on this point:
To his credit, [Reagan] was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people. This is not a criticism: the tale of those increases tells you a lot about what was right with President Reagan's leadership, and what's wrong with the leadership of George W. Bush.The first Reagan tax increase came in 1982. By then it was clear that the budget projections used to justify the 1981 tax cut were wildly optimistic. In response, Mr. Reagan agreed to a sharp rollback of corporate tax cuts, and a smaller rollback of individual income tax cuts. Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase.
The contrast with President Bush is obvious. President Reagan, confronted with evidence that his tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, changed course. President Bush, confronted with similar evidence, has pushed for even more tax cuts.
-- Paul Krugman, New York Times
One of the most intriguing of the analyses I've read in the wake of Mr. Reagan's passing was actually published a year ago in the Washington Monthly. It was written by Talking Points Memo blogster Joshua Micah Marshall. It makes a point that much of what Reagan bequeathed to us as a legacy, in sharp opposition to the hero-worshippers' version of him that we get from the right, actually furthered the liberal agenda.
It seems that, ultimately, the president never completely lost touch with his roots as a Roosevelt Democrat. Consider:
Reagan ... vastly expanded one of the largest federal domestic programs, Social Security. Before becoming president, he had often openly mused, much to the alarm of his politically sensitive staff, about restructuring Social Security to allow individuals to opt out of the system--an antecedent of today's privatization plans. At the start of his administration, with Social Security teetering on the brink of insolvency, Reagan attempted to push through immediate draconian cuts to the program. But the Senate unanimously rebuked his plan, and the GOP lost 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm elections, largely as a result of this overreach.The following year, Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn't indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time.)
By expanding rather than scaling back entitlements, Reagan--and Newt Gingrich after him--demonstrated that conservatives could not and would not launch a frontal assault on Social Security, effectively conceding that these cherished New Deal programs were central features of the American polity.
-- Joshua Micah Marshall
So, a great president? I don't think we really can say that yet, and we may never be able to say it of Ronald Reagan, regardless of how much he is revered today. His star may fade, as I believe John Kennedy's ultimately will as public perceptions and idealizations fade into hard historical analysis.
But I think it is safe to say, even from the perspective of one who did not agree with much of the Reagan agenda, that Ronald Wilson Reagan easily proved himself a worthy president, despite the flaws, despite the errors. Despite it all. We will remember Ronald Reagan.
-- Kevin Featherly
