Eric Alterman’s post this morning counterbalances the effusive praise in the press of former President Regan. More important, it links to several stories on aspects of Reagan’s administrations and policies.
For me, though I don’t want to speak ill of the recently departed, two thoughts come to mind. One, I was utterly baffled when he was elected. I couldn’t believe that someone who I considered so intellectually ill-prepared stomped Carter. The presidents I was old enough to observe first hand – Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter – seemed to have either the experience or general intellectual weight to be president. Maybe it’s a poor assumption that a president must have some gravitas, but I do and was therefore aghast that he won.
Two, while his legacy was more than economic, it is for that I remember him. I sum up his presidency thus: He made greed acceptable. He allowed us to lose our conscious about accumulating as much as we could without concern for the less fortunate. Whether he was a “good guy” or not (and evidence suggests he was), his economic policies were a disaster for this county.