Warlady
03-08-2001, 11:14 AM
http://projo.com/cgi-bin/story.pl/opinion/05016021.htm
Reagan focused on unfettering America
ACCORDING to the conventional (liberal) wisdom, President Ronald Reagan, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this month, was little more than an amiable dolt, helpless without his handlers or the TelePrompter. His presidency was a case of "sleepwalking through history." His successes were the result of dumb luck, and his popularity was due to the backwardness of the American people.
According to the conventional (liberal) wisdom, the Reagan presidency unleashed the "decade of greed." Of course, not all benefited. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. His tax cuts saddled the country with massive debt. Meanwhile, his saber rattling set back relations with the Soviet Union. Only an open-minded leader such as Mikhail Gorbachev was able to undo the damage wrought by President Reagan and end the Cold War.
Fortunately for the historical record, there is a serious re-evaluation of the Reagan presidency under way. In a recent survey of presidential historians from across the political spectrum, Mr. Reagan was ranked eighth, firmly within the category of "near-great" presidents, a group that included Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.
The key to Mr. Reagan's success as president is to be found in a famous 1953 essay by the British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. In that essay, "The Hedgehog and the Fox," Sir Isaiah categorized writers, thinkers, and human beings in general according to the dictum of the Greek poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Ronald Reagan was clearly a hedgehog.
The one big thing that Mr. Reagan knew was that the United States was a fundamentally decent regime that constituted the only hope for freedom and prosperity in the modern world. He knew that the "idea" of America was undermined at home by a shift away from individual effort and liberty to reliance on the government and that it was undermined abroad by the ideology of communism. The focus of his presidency was to unfetter America. The position of the United States today is a tribute to his success.
Reagan focused on unfettering America
ACCORDING to the conventional (liberal) wisdom, President Ronald Reagan, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this month, was little more than an amiable dolt, helpless without his handlers or the TelePrompter. His presidency was a case of "sleepwalking through history." His successes were the result of dumb luck, and his popularity was due to the backwardness of the American people.
According to the conventional (liberal) wisdom, the Reagan presidency unleashed the "decade of greed." Of course, not all benefited. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. His tax cuts saddled the country with massive debt. Meanwhile, his saber rattling set back relations with the Soviet Union. Only an open-minded leader such as Mikhail Gorbachev was able to undo the damage wrought by President Reagan and end the Cold War.
Fortunately for the historical record, there is a serious re-evaluation of the Reagan presidency under way. In a recent survey of presidential historians from across the political spectrum, Mr. Reagan was ranked eighth, firmly within the category of "near-great" presidents, a group that included Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.
The key to Mr. Reagan's success as president is to be found in a famous 1953 essay by the British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. In that essay, "The Hedgehog and the Fox," Sir Isaiah categorized writers, thinkers, and human beings in general according to the dictum of the Greek poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Ronald Reagan was clearly a hedgehog.
The one big thing that Mr. Reagan knew was that the United States was a fundamentally decent regime that constituted the only hope for freedom and prosperity in the modern world. He knew that the "idea" of America was undermined at home by a shift away from individual effort and liberty to reliance on the government and that it was undermined abroad by the ideology of communism. The focus of his presidency was to unfetter America. The position of the United States today is a tribute to his success.