« Ronald Reagan 1911-2004 | Main | D-Day »
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Celebrating Reagan:
» Press Play from Dr. Frank's What's-it
I flipped through and watched a bit of all the rote, canned Reagan retrospectives that were flooding the TV yesterday. TV news was well-prepared for this; everybody had been sitting on the copy for the last ten years, waiting for... [Read More]
» Once more after the breach from Inoperable Terran
Michele has posted a terrific eulogy.... [Read More]
» Ronald Reagan dead from c0llision.org
From Fox News: Reagan, 93, died Saturday following a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. He had left office at the end of his second term in 1989. It's probably better like that, for both Nancy and their kids. At least,... [Read More]
» Remembering A President from Absinthe & Cookies (a little bit bitter, a little bit sweet)
Ronald Reagan has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was in... [Read More]
» Ronald Reagan Passes - R.I.P. Gipper from The Politburo Diktat
Our enemies always thought Ronald Reagan was a little crazy. "Who knows what he might do?" they asked. I liked that. Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, scaling back government and calling for "morning agai... [Read More]
» Ronald Reagan 1911-2004, RIP Gipper (UPDATED) from The Young Curmudgeon
I can't stand most politicians. Then, there are some with whom I agree on issues. Then, there is an even smaller number whom I respect. Then, there are a tiny handful who have moved me and inspired me, who [Read More]
» Reagan Tributes Worth Reading from AlphaPatriot
Outside the Beltway has an excellent roundup of media tributes. Being American in T.O. covers the Canadian perspective quite well. A Little More to the Right posts the entire text of Reagan's farewell address, while American RealPolitik chose to post h... [Read More]
» Ugh from Physics Geek
I was saddened by Reagan's passing for many reasons, some of which I'll discuss in a later post. However, I knew that the human debris at DU would be high-fiving each other. My wife had a hard time believing me... [Read More]
» Ugh from Physics Geek
I was saddened by Reagan's passing for many reasons, some of which I'll discuss in a later post. However, I knew that the human debris at DU would be high-fiving each other. My wife had a hard time believing me... [Read More]
» If Michael Moore falls on a Journalist, does the journalist make a sound? from Who Tends the Fires
The Word for the Day is: "Forien Endorsements" I think Connie du Toit is right: there is a slowdown in the blogosphere. It's taking me longer and longer to mine out Spam!worthy stuff than it did a few months ago... [Read More]
» Compare and Contrast from Shot In The Dark
At Reagan's funeral, do you suspect we're going to see, say, Alexander Haig stand up, turn to the assembled Democrats and demand that they drop everything they believe to continue the Reagan legacy? Do you think in two years we'll... [Read More]
» just a story from Amanda Strassner
... [Read More]
» Legacies from Winds of Change.NET
LaughingWolf leads with some thoughts on legacies as his "Food for Thought Saturday" post... and then we have a whole bunch of positive legacies for you in the worlds of politics, music, science, and beyond! What really gratifies me is how many of them... [Read More]
Comments
VERY well said, Michele.
Posted by: Big Brother (formerly Evil Otto) | June 6, 2004 10:01 AM
Good Lord, Michele - That was magnificent. Bless your heart. All the best, Terry
Posted by: Terry Reynolds | June 6, 2004 10:26 AM
Michele,
A splendid, magnificent post. (LOL, I'm still chuckling over your remarks about Jo(h)n Anderson!)
I was in the Air Force throughout the Reagan years. When I enlisted in 1981, we were prepared to go to war with the Soviet Union. During my last year, 1987, I remember seeing posters for tours of that same entity. (Only a few years later, of course, the USSR would no longer exist.)
You and I are about the same age, and my memories of that mythic Red Button are quite a lot like yours, although I could never have described them so eloquently.
Again, thanks for a great tribute to President Reagan.
Posted by: asher abrams | June 6, 2004 10:35 AM
Well said. I will fly the flag at halfstaff on the anniversary of this day, every year of my life, from now on.
Posted by: og | June 6, 2004 11:29 AM
Thank you for this, Michele. He was a titan. I'm just at such a loss for words. As Navy Secretary Gideon Welles said of Lincoln, "now he belongs to the ages."
Posted by: Dave J | June 6, 2004 11:37 AM
Anderson: check
age 18, first vote ever: check
My college-aged friends gnashing teeth and crying in beer over impending nuclear war on election night: check
Had me at "morning in America": check
Posted by: SarahW | June 6, 2004 11:50 AM
Great post, Michele; an inspirational way to remember one of our best Presidents. I was 8 years old when Reagan left office, but I realize now what I was too young to realize then. Ron's defense buildup gave America the military power it needed to defend itself (and others); his tax cuts and economic vision gave us back the prosperity that had left for so many decades.
Posted by: Jonathan | June 6, 2004 12:08 PM
Growing up in the 60's and 70's was to grow up with the words Cold War hanging over your head every day. We had air raids in school where we had to hunker under our desks or squat down in the hallway with our heads tucked between our legs. Just in case the Russians bomb us, they said.
Where did you go to school? We're the same age and I can honestly say I never experienced anything remotely like this. I remember seeing "fallout shelter" signs at my school and not understanding what it meant, such had the level of Cold War tension diminished by the early '70s.
Disappointing though not surprising that even in a post of mourning you can't spare your liberal-hating snark. So much for Reagan making "us" all optimistic.
Posted by: Charlie T. | June 6, 2004 12:35 PM
This is beautiful, Michele. Just beautiful. Thank you.
Posted by: Annastazia | June 6, 2004 12:56 PM
Michele,
Thank you.
My experience somewhat parallels yours. Right down to voting for John Anderson, though I was 20.
And Charlie, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. At 43 I believe I'm a year or two older than Michele. I graduated from high school in 1978. We also had the air raid drills, crouching under our desks covering our heads with our arms. A curtain monitor was assigned each week to draw the large black out curtains across the windows to "protect" us from the flash and flying glass. Our school was an air raid shelter.
There's no left or right in that, it's just part of a shared history.
Thanks again Michele
Posted by: Tink | June 6, 2004 01:26 PM
Ronald Reagan was a wonderful guy. I have about a thousand problems with his Administration and its policies, but he was always standing on his principles and they weren't bad ones: he loved America and he stood up against its enemies.
I'm saying that as a liberal who has only voted for Republicans on the local level.
My only quibble with your eulogy is that the Red Menace is not gone. It is changing and using other names, just as Western Democracy has and always will change, but it is still there. It will always be there as long as dictators and their cronies are capable of holding a nation under their boots (probably the ones with MADE IN CHINA on the sole).
Posted by: jon | June 6, 2004 01:28 PM
Charlie
I'm 8 years older than Michele, indeed, my 50th birthday was yesterday (see my post on the previous thread). I grew up in Granada Hills, CA (north end of the San Fernando Valley) ... Drop drills were a regular part of my school year. I remember the family up the street from us who built a bomb shelter in their backyard. Air raid sirens were regularly tested at 9 am the third Friday of every month (and even at a tender age I always was afraid if the Soviets did attack they'd time it to coincide with our airraid testing days). We all knew which public buildings in our area had basements with officially designated Fallout Shelters.
The late 50's up to mid 60's is always being depicted as a post-wwii bucolic, saddles shoes, poodle skirt, Elvis, suburbia "innocent" era..but parallel was Sputnik, the Soviet crush of Hungary in 56 and Czechoslavakia in 68, MAD, the Doomsday Clock, Kruschev's "we will bury you" speech, the Cuban missle crises....
Thank you, Mr. Reagan, for making the fall of the Berlin Wall a reality.
Michele, standing ovation for your eulogy.
Posted by: darleen | June 6, 2004 01:33 PM
More reactions to Reagan's death.
Posted by: Mike Hirshberg | June 6, 2004 02:12 PM
I am a child of the Cold War. I remember, when I was 8, my parents taking my brother and me on a sudden trip to Mexico in October 1962. I remember the Soviet-American proxy wars in Viet-Nam and Afghanistan, and crises beyond number. Like most of my generation, I expected that someday, without warning, the world would end. I remember Berlin, and the Wall, which I walked the length of in 1989, not knowing that 3 months later it would be gone. Soon thereafter the Evil Empire itself was on "the ash heap of history", just as Reagan had said.
I remember Ronald Reagan, and give thanks.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy | June 6, 2004 02:35 PM
My first presidential vote was for Reagan in '84 and, when I was commissioned in '86 I was proud to have him as Commander in Chief. I was underway, on alert status performing a nuclear deterent patrol when that Wall came down. Didn't realize how monumental it was until over a month later when we got back to port and could finally see the photos and video.
As much as many would hate to admit it, I think a lot of GWB's appeal is similar to what made Reagan so well liked. While Bush is not the accomplished communicator Reagan was, both men are seen as strong and committed to their priciples in the face of a dangerous enemy. Both, while not always right, come off as sincere.
I think the best legacy we could help create of Ronald Reagan is, regarless of political ideology, to expect and demand of all political leaders the same level of personal honesty and genuineness Reagan always exuded.
Posted by: submandave | June 6, 2004 02:42 PM
Strangely enough, even though I graduated high school in 1980, I never went through any of the duck-and-cover stuff; it just wasn't done in Florida, at least in the schools I went to, even though Miami was right in Cuba's bullseye. I think once we did this drill thing where we all went into the hallway and sat down -- though maybe that was some sort of hurricane drill. Maybe they thought, the Cuban Missile Crisis being such a recent memory, that people would simply snap under the strain of being reminded; or more likely, they didn't bother as they knew such measures would be useless.
On the other hand, we had regular fire drills.
By the way, can someone tell Charlie T. that it's not always about him?
Posted by: Andrea Harris | June 6, 2004 02:46 PM
I grew up in a town where the only industry was building ships for the Navy. Five miles away was a Naval Air Station where they would neither confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons. We never had duck and cover drills but I think that was mostly because everyone believed we were a direct target and hiding under a desk would be useless. My first, and proudest, vote cast was for Reagan's second term. It was a vote that cost me friendships in college, but I didn't really miss the friends who marked his reelection with black arm bands.
Michele,
Thank you for thoughts.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin | June 6, 2004 03:28 PM
Showing this to my mother, who cried when she heard the news. I spent my second through tenth grades during the eighties, and though I was too young to understand much of the world around me through most of it, I can remember the almost unprecedented prosperity we had. Even with the threat of the Red Menace hanging over our collective heads, my family never felt want of anything. We really were free to live our lives...and I cannot thank Reagan enough for that.
Posted by: Ayne | June 6, 2004 03:47 PM
Michele, a couple of years ago I read and saw on TV some libs who admitted the "Just Say No" campaign was working.
Sometimes the simplest approaches are the best.
1982 I did the 11K miles in a bus tour of Europe.
Was at The Wall. Looking over it, East Berlin was grim. Hungary adapted after being crushed in 56 - lively, colorful, Czechloslovakia, to me, did not - grey, a pall over the Prague. I spent 7/4/82 there.
And then there's the propaganda billboard I snapped in East Germany, IIRC. Uncle Sam, skull of death, hammer and sickle, dove of peace.
Right.
Cast both votes for Ronnie. I was right when I was born and I'm right now.
Posted by: Sandy P | June 6, 2004 04:34 PM
Another Anderson voter here. I've also found my way over to the VRWC, but Reagan had to grow on me.
I'm glad that enough others saw things clearly enough to elect him back then.
Posted by: kam | June 6, 2004 04:46 PM
My President, Ronald Reagan, would raise my spirit and put the proverbial lump in my throat in all of his speeches. I was in my fourth year of a six year tour in the military when Reagan took office; we were a completely demoralized bunch of soldiers during those four years. Thank God that Carter did not go to war with Iran, we would have lost, really lost this time. The will to win was sapped among us. Reagan changed that instantly. Orders came down from up top that gave our commanders true on-scene control of the forces, the military hardware store was open and my pay shot up. We were gearing up for the showdown and we ready to get on with it, if it came. That message was not lost on our enemies; Reagan knew what everyone else didn't at the time, our enemies were only man-eating tigers in our pussy-whipped minds. The key was LEADERSHIP, FAITH and the INNER SPIRIT within all Americans.
Posted by: StarBanker | June 6, 2004 05:11 PM
One thing I didn't realize at the time Reagan was in office - and which I miss, now - was his sense of dignity and respect for the office. (A lot has been made of his refusing to take his suit coat off in the Oval Office).
In some respects, I think he's probably the last "real grown-up" we had as a president, and he may be the last "real grown-up" we have as a president. The Baby Boomer generation and my own generation ("X") are far too cynical and casual.
I was born in 1969; I wasn't around for duck-and-cover drills but I am old enough to remember fearing the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviets. I remember my dad having a bomb shelter constructed in the waning days of the Carter presidency.
And I remember in high school (when Reagan was in his second term and famously calling for Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall) that I wasn''t quite as scared, and didn't expect a nuclear war in the way I had a few years ago, any more.
actually, it's kind of surprising to see some of the media outlets heap praise on Reagan - some of which vilified him while alive. But I guess that's how some folks believe - like Berke Breathed said, a "statesman" is a "dead politician"
I'd rather have my politicians be statesman while they are alive. I think Reagan at the very least approached being a statesman.
Posted by: ricki | June 6, 2004 05:50 PM
I was born in 1978, so I don't have many memories of the Reagan years. I do remember that my parents raised me to hate him, though that didn't stick. I actually consider him to be one of my hero's now. Here's to the Gipper.
Posted by: Patrick Banks | June 6, 2004 06:27 PM
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/5/171258/8003
http://www.epenthesis.org/archives/003383.php
Posted by: Anon | June 6, 2004 07:39 PM
anon@anon.org left the same on my Reagan thread a few minutes ago. A serial troll, how cute.
feel free to delete this comment too, if you prefer to 'keep the thread clean.'
Posted by: The Commissar | June 6, 2004 07:54 PM
I was born in 1970, spent the first 12 years of my life in a tiny town on the coast of Lake Erie, and we DID have "duck and cover"-style air-raid drills... complete with air-raid siren on the top of the town building.
Ronald Reagan, long before he was President, was a lifeguard in his town. He saved people from drowning, so many that Peggy Noonan later had a hard time keeping track of them all.
Ronald Reagan, when he was a union official for the SAG, took a firm stand against a dogma that devalued individual freedom and human life-Communism- at a time and a place when to have ethics was to be shunned and hated. Because of this, and because of his fearlessness as a union negotiator, his life was threatened and for a while he travelled armed and with a police escort.
As President, he fought for what he believed in even though other and lesser men belittled and hated him for it. In the end he won a great victory over a dire foe... and then he quietly went back home, there to suffer with dignity a fate most of us will admit that they dread.
Let the lesser men carp. Reagan was a great man, a great American, and I am just grateful he was.
Posted by: DaveP. | June 6, 2004 08:16 PM
So well said, Michelle, thank you. I always thought that President Reagan's true genius was not so much to make us proud of America, but proud of Americans.
BTW, my elementary school in north San Diego county was on the old coast highway, 20 miles south of Camp Pendleton. During the Cuban missile crisis, we saw camoflaged troop trucks every day at recess ferrying Marines down to San Diego for deployment. Spooky days indeed. Thank God President Reagan believed that you have to beat evil, not accomodate it.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) | June 6, 2004 08:22 PM
Darleen: happy birthday. I think the 9 year difference in our ages is significant. I started school in 1967 (and my first 2 years were on a military base) and I never went through a duck-and-cover drill.
Andrea: I enjoyed your recollections. I'd say who I voted for in 1980 too, but that would make it "about me" so I won't.
Posted by: Charlie T. | June 6, 2004 08:23 PM
Elementary schools in Alabama from 1964-69, Texas schools until 1977.
I remember the drills until 7th grade, so, 1972.
Posted by: Dave in Texas | June 6, 2004 09:51 PM
Commisar:
The same troll is apparently leaving the same links in the comment box of every pro-Reagan post on the internet. A persistent little spam-bot he is. I see him everywhere.
Posted by: Eric Deamer | June 6, 2004 10:12 PM
I went to college in Chicago starting in 1978. I remember that many times during the next four years I would look at the breath taking Chicago skyline, with its skyscrapers set against Lake Michigan, and imagine its destruction in a nuclear war. At the time, we all thought that it might end like that.
He ended the Cold War without firing a shot -- Margaret Thatcher
Thank you Mr. Reagan.
Posted by: Average Joe | June 6, 2004 11:35 PM
It would seem that you discounted the entirety of the Cold War altogether. Point of fact, there was more than just one President who lived in the White House during the Cold War, which as you would know, had it's beginnings after World War II. To discount Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter is stupendous, if not blind to the facts at hand. Reagan had an impact on the Cold War as everyone did during that time period. To believe that Reagan was the pivotal leader who brought about the end of the Cold War is facile. He was the President who saw the Cold War come to an end. But, he did not win the Cold War. In fact, one could make the argument that 10's of thousands of US soldiers, hundreds of Presidential administration appointees, and seven (count them) Presidents had a role in it's demise. If we liken this to a baseball game, what you are saying is that the reliever who came in at the bottom of the 9th inning won the game; when, in fact, it was the team as a whole that won the game.
Posted by: Case | June 7, 2004 01:25 PM
Another honest eulogy:
http://www.epinions.com/content_3945963652
Posted by: Fez Monkey | June 8, 2004 02:18 PM
To discount Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter is stupendous, if not blind to the facts at hand.
Well, Case is right about this. Johnson and Carter significantly set back Russian freedom by about 20 years. If not for them, the Soviet Union would have fallen much sooner.
Posted by: Nanshi | June 8, 2004 07:33 PM
I know that most of your readers think Reagan tore down the Soviet Union singlehandedly, but I thought it would be nice if you realized that the Soviet people had a had in it themselves.
After all, Reagan had other things on his plate, like defending Pol Pot and apartheid.
Posted by: Don Myers | June 9, 2004 03:51 PM