Reagan

WASHINGTON -- You may have missed it, but in advance of President's Day the Gallup Organization repeated its annual poll asking voters: "Whom do you regard as the greatest U.S. president?" No, the winner wasn't Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. It was none other than Ronald Reagan. Maybe the fact that the Great Emancipator is long dead, and the poll was taken amid much publicity about the Great Communicator's 90th birthday, had something to do with the result. Whatever the reason, Mr. Reagan was the choice of 18 percent of 1,016 respondents 18 and over, to 16 percent who named John F. Kennedy and only 14 percent for Lincoln.

After news that his partner on the popular Mix 106.5 morning show had been let go, Reagan Warfield posted an emotional tribute to Jojo Girard on Facebook. "The last 24 hours have been and emotional blur," wrote Warfield, who remains at the station. "This is tough. " Girard confirmed to The Sun Thursday that he was told immediately after his show that day that his contract would not be renewed. Girard posted on Facebook: "have joined the ranks of the unemployed at least I'm not alone.

Washington -- WHAT DIFFERENCE whether Nancy and Ol' Blue Eyes hanky-panked in White House nooners? They deserve each other in any case.Far more interesting is how President Reagan got away with an eight-year gig as colossus of the American scene.Lou Cannon, the reporter who covered him longest and best, lays out the theatrical illusions that framed his life and presidency in a new book, "President Reagan -- the Role of a Lifetime."Cannon all but ruptures himself with generosity to his inert subject, lavishing praise on Reagan for rekindling national pride and crediting his military build-up for ending the Cold War. Historians are likely to disagree.

It would seem that we're now at the stage of global economic lunacy where the worldwide socialist slide is so far gone that the president of Russia is lecturing the world, and particularly Europe, about the risks of socialism. Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Vladivostok, Russia, Vladimir Putin promoted the merits of free-market economics. He said that by pulling the former Soviet satellite states into its sphere after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Europe chose to take responsibility for subsidizing their economic well-being.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- It's a measure of the strong hand that Democrats believe they hold this year that they feel free to criticize the once untouchable Ronald Reagan, embrace the once invisible Jimmy Carter and try to turn attacks on marital infidelity into points for their side.As Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton is home in the state capital watching the Republicans meet in Houston, he has authorized his campaign to use every opening to blunt the GOP message this week.Probably the toughest job is to turn attacks against Mr. Clinton's character into positive points, but a fresh promise by President Bush to fire any of his operatives who dealt in personal attacks provided some ammunition.

A vote by former President Reagan for Bill Clinton fo president surely belongs in the wonders-never-cease department, but a top Clinton inaugural official insists that's what the Gipper did on Election Day."Use this only without attribution," the official told TV Guide for an article in the issue on newsstands today. "But remember when Clinton stopped to see Reagan [Nov. 27] and got those jelly beans? How friendly they were? Well, Reagan voted for Clinton. I have it on the highest authority."

In October 1947, Ronald Reagan testified at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on communist influence in Hollywood. He "created something of a stir," according to a report in Motion Picture Daily, with his "affirmation of . . . American democracy, in and out of Hollywood."But, writes University of Wisconsin communications professor Stephen Vaughn in his absorbing -- but unsettling -- study of Mr. Reagan as actor-politician, Mr. Reagan was an informer for the FBI, complete with a code name, "T-10."

WASHINGTON -- Talleyrand's wisdom in expressing the sensibility of conservatism -- "Above all, gentlemen, no zeal" -- is unintelligible to some profoundly unconservative conservatives who advocate madly multiplying honors for Ronald Reagan. How many ways are there to show misunderstanding of Mr. Reagan's spirit? Let us count the zealots' ways. Not content with seeing Mr. Reagan's name attached to Washington's National Airport and to Washington's second (to the Pentagon) largest building and to an aircraft carrier, some people want -- seriously -- some sort of Reagan honor in all 3,141 American counties.

A vote by former President Reagan for Bill Clinton for president surely belongs in the wonders-never-cease department, but a top Clinton inaugural official insists that's what Mr. Reagan did on Election Day."Use this only without attribution," the official told TV Guide for an article in the issue on newsstands yesterday."But remember when Clinton stopped to see Reagan [on Nov. 27] and got those jelly beans? How friendly they were? Well, Reagan voted for Clinton. I have it on the highest authority."

Summers are often boring in Washington, and August usually proves to be the summer's most boring month. Since Boy Clinton left town, all his successor has been able to give us has been tax cuts and progress toward a patients' bill of rights, education reform of a sort, an energy policy and faith-based social programs. To beat August's impending tedium, George W. Bush wasted little time to beat a path to his ranch deep in the Texas outback. I have beaten a path to Palo Alto, Calif., home of the Hoover Institution - the famed think tank that recently has donated so many luminous minds to the Bush II administration - just to see what is going on out here.

Your editorial ("Doing better than 'fine,'" June 12) was correct in mildly chastising President Barack Obama for not being upbeat enough about the record of the private sector during his administration. You correctly cited the mess he inherited form the Republicans. You also pointed out Ronald Reagan as an example. The Republicans, including Mitt Romney, always say this president is doing a terrible job on the economy and long for the days of Ronald Reagan's performance in this area.

Every Republican presidential candidate claims to be the heir to Ronald Reagan's legacy. For years, Republican partisans have carried Reagan's memory before them as the ancient Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant. Just invoking his name proved your ideological purity, and would smite the dreaded RINO (Republican in name only). Problem is, those who most fervently claim to adhere to Ronald Reagan's principles don't seem to understand Reagan's greatest principle: decency. Ronald Reagan practically has been deified as a small government, anti-tax, pro-life, all-American conservative who never compromised his principles.

As Mitt Romney continues to struggle against conservative Republican complaints that his claim to be one of them is no more than an expedient makeover, the latest candidate to emerge as his principal rival for the party's presidential nomination is striving for quite a makeover of his own. That would be Newt Gingrich, famed for his slashing and often over-the-top attacks on critics and inquisitive members of the news media. Buoyed by his recent televised debate appearances that he has converted into a showcase of how smart he is, Mr. Gingrich has vowed to take the high road, at least against fellow Republicans.

Your Sunday article, "Expiring tax breaks loom large" (Nov. 29) reports that Republicans see lower tax rates on wealthy Americans as essential to job creation. The press, when reporting this position, should point out the absurdity of this assertion based on what we have learned from the past. Tax rates on the wealthy were far higher during the Reagan and Clinton years than at present. Job creation was 16 million under Reagan and 23 million under Mr. Clinton. When George W. Bush cut taxes on the wealthy, he managed to create an anemic 3 million new jobs over 8 years.

Your editorial "Fixing the Messenger" (Nov. 12) was the best thing I have read in The Sun for a long time. I have long maintained that Ronald Reagan's bizarre economic policies caused untold harm to the nation when he was president, and they continue to haunt us today. Jack Kinstlinger, Baltimore

5.1, 9.3, 8.1, 8.5, 8, 7.1 and 3.9. While that might sound like a controversial series of Olympic curling scores, these numbers in fact add up to a grave problem for PresidentBarack Obama. They are the quarterly percentage gains in gross domestic product starting in 1983 through to Election Day 1984. And they aren't the only significant numbers. In 1984, real income for individuals grew by more than 6 percent and inflation plummeted. The unemployment rate in November 1984 was still 7.2 percent - relatively high - but it had dropped from 10.8 percent in December 1982, and it was clear the momentum was for even lower unemployment.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- I have no idea whether Fred Thompson, former senator from Tennessee, will run for the Republican nomination for president, but he should. He has Ronald Reagan's communication skills and speaks plainly, in ways most people can understand. Anyone who has listened to him substitute for Paul Harvey on ABC News Radio senses that, in this, he follows in Mr. Reagan's footsteps. Mr. Thompson conveys Middle American, common-sense values. When he is asked a question, he doesn't sound as if he's giving a poll-tested, pabulum answer.

WASHINGTON -- Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican presidential contender who favors abortion rights, said in a televised debate last night that it would be "OK" if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion. Giuliani, the early front-runner in the polls, said he believes that abortion is a matter that should be left to a woman's conscience, but he also said that states could make their own decisions about whether to outlaw the procedure.

Del Quentin Wilber, author of "Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan," says that people often ask him, "Why do the book now? Don't we know that he got shot and lived?" What they won't know until they read the book is how close the country came to losing the president outside the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981. It isn't just that Reagan lost half the blood in his body or that the bullet lodged in his left lung proved maddeningly difficult to find. Astonishingly, the Secret Service had started training its members for an immediate response to gunfire and injury only after the shooting of George Wallace in 1972, in Laurel — not after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

I wonder if the negligence of the air traffic controller suspended for sleeping on the job is not a delayed consequence of Ronald Reagan's busting of the air traffic controllers union 30 years ago("Sleeping controller suspended," March 25). Why was the controller working four consecutive overnight shifts? Did he have a choice? These questions are especially pertinent now during a concerted attack on collective bargaining, which protects both workers and the public they serve. John G. Bailey, Edgemere