Rest in peace Ronny. I might not be American, but i know greatness when i see it. And you were definately one of the greats.

Saved the US economy and the West in the Cold War. Revived and emboldened the GOP and Conservatism. Freed 400 million slaves of Communism.

Kept the pundits scratching their pointy heads and outfoxed us all, even at the end.

Quiet, confident, courageous, and an unequaled leader.

RIP, President Reagan.

I remember hearing his radio program when I was in college in 1976. In 1981, I was not sure what his conservatism really meant. By 1989, I had grown to love him. God bless Ronald Reagan, his family and his loved ones.

He has gone to a better place. I once heard someone say that Ronald Reagan was proof that God still loves the USA. He certainly did a lot to make this world a better place, we all owe him.

I am saddened.

Anti-Cowbell news, indeed.

Ronald "Ray-Gun" Reagan, rest in peace. You were a great man.

So, when do we start the great Liberal Purge of 2004?

Is it possible to toll a cowbell? Didn't think so.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Reagan, and pray for all of us still here facing another evil that threatens our civilization.

Phoenix

@ Sharkman...ditto!

Thankyou President Reagan...you left the world a better place. Condolences to the family.

I love ya Ace, and I typed this one out to prove Ronnie was a conservative, but not QUITE a republican! Check out our post and see if there is anything worth listening to. God rest the 'Great Communicator's' soul. www.thefoggiestidea.com

Rest in peace, Mr. President. You will be missed.

To Teflon Ron, keeper of such faith not even the mighty US media could shake; thank you for the Free World.

He was the perfect man for the job, and he came along at the perfect time. Look at his life. He was molded by God to be President at a critical time in the country's history.

Amen, Ace.

Hopefully, he is allowed to rest in peace. But I'm bracing myself for the inevitable ugliness that rears its head after the mourning period ends.

Let's hope not. But we know better.

No need to wait for ugliness. The New York Times had a hit piece already written.

For example:

"The former House speaker, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., Democrat of Massachusetts, said of Mr. Reagan: "Most of the time he was an actor reading lines who
didn't understand his own programs. I hate to say it about such an agreeable man, but it was sinful that Ronald Reagan ever became president."

Also, I read that Reagan's economic boom was the Decade of Greed (Ace had a nice post about this a couple weeks ago).

Mr. O'Neill, who served in much of Mr. Reagan's tenure, said he had "known every president since Harry Truman and there's no question in my mind that Ronald Reagan was the worst." But, he added, "he would have made a hell of a king."

Yeah, we knew it was coming. (the ugliness) Just shows where their hearts are...so much for compassion huh?

If that's how Mr. O'neil wants to remember him, okay. But I know charisma when I see it, and Reagan was the epitome. I'll always remember him saying, "A message to terrorists everywhere: You can run, but you can't hide."

We defended him while Comrade Streisand and Comrade Brolin tried to slander him, and we'll continue to defend him while he's in heaven....

RIP President Reagan. You make me proud to be an American.

I don't really have the right words to say what I feel right now. It's kind of odd that only this morning, I made a post here in the comments section about how GWB needed to learn from Reagan how to change the minds of the voters, and indeed, how to change the nature of the national discussion itself. That's what President Reagan did best.

He led the nation by being an educator rather than a commander. He showed people, by tirelessly promoting his viewpoint, which way was the right way. Anyone in a position of leadership can learn from his example.

It amazed me to read the comments from Gorbechev. I truly believe Gorbechev liked Reagan and considered him a friend. Mr. and Mrs. Gorbechev visited the former President and his wife for dinner in May of 1992 in California and were presented with a gift: two white Stetson cowboy hats!

Great posts.

Most of the policies he inacted, over time, have proben to do the United States more harm than good, and then there was that business of the Contras, weapons for hostages, oh yeah and lets not forget those 400 plus marines blown up. But he was a charmer and had a great sense of humor.

Most of the policies he inacted, over time, have proben to do the United States more harm than good

Indeed. The proob is in the pubbing.

Iguess my Reagan Moment came a little later. It cam abour after starting to listen to Rush Limbaugh. And it definately cam about when the firsr Gulf War happened. I was a freahman in college at the time and all the people were talking about how the war was about oil. But I disagreed. I thought that we should have kicked the hell out of Saddam and get him out of Kuwait. Then after reading about Ronald Reagan and more on conservative thought. I myself became a true conservative. It was a long time vcoming, but I was about 18-19. Ronald Reagan will be thought od as the best president of the 20th century. He made us all proud to be Americans and freed our country of the opposition of communism in the world.

R.I.P Gipper

Ronald Reagan was a good man and a great President. He will be missed. I still remember what it was like in 1980 before he was elected: The USSR seemed to be on a winning streak; high inflation and unemployment; a military still paralyzed by Vietnam; Iran on a rampage; a general lack of confidence in the US on the part of friends and allies (a sitting President who could barely fend off a rabbit by himself!); Communism on the march in the Western Hemisphere in Nicaragua, Grenada, El Salvador etc.

And then we had 8 years of Ronnie:

1. The cold war won; the Warsaw pact disintegrated, the Soviet empire destroyed.

2. Communism stopped in central and latin America, (now if only we could do the same in our universities).

3. Iran played off against Iraq so both lost.

4. Our military restored. (It was largely the Reagan force that performed so well in Gulf one and two).

5. "7 fat years" of economic prosperity, inflation reduced to tolerable levels, unemployment greatly reduced.

6. Above all, he never lost hope and always inspired hope in others.

Goodbye Ronnie. I will miss you.

G-D rest his soul, and bring peace and comfort to his family.

Part of the difficulty in appreciating Reagan for someone of my age is that I wasn't follwing politics before Reagan. All I knew about politics was what I saw on Saturday Night Live.

I was also vaguely aware that two comedians I liked, the Smothers Brothers, thought that communism was pretty darn cool.

So really I came of age during the Age of Reagan. I can sort of appreciate what things were like in the 70's, but only in an intellectual way, reading about social currents in the 70's. I didn't live them, in the sense of understanding the times.

The only thing I knew in the 70's was Star Wars. The movie, I mean. Not SDI.

People who are just a few years older understand that, in the 70's, it was just accepted that America was evil, and was furrthermore weak and on the decline and always would be; that communism and terrorism must be appeased, and that a non-peaceful coexistence was the best that could be hoped for; that skyrocketing crime in our cities must be tolerated, for there was no alternative to such toleration, as it was just not socially acceptable to suggest locking criminals up for longer and longer periods of time.

I think Reagan changed all those perceptions.

But I, still a little kid in 1980, wasn't really aware of the tremendous change he engendered. By the time I had a clue what was going on, the Reagan revolution had become the status quo, the new Just the Way Things Are.

I think to really appreciate Reagan you had to be aware of the time before, when it was just accepted that if Iranians kidnapped Americans for 400+ days, we just had to live with that, because to do otherwise would be somehow "wrong."

Reagan offered Americans the possibility they had been longing for-- the idea that things could change. We didn't have to accept decline, weakness, and barbarity in our cities. Millions and millions of Americans knew things were going wrong, but there was no political leader with the wisdom and will to declare such beliefs.

Reagan opened up new possibilities, and soon after, those possibilities became reality.

Someone, like me, growing up in the eighties can never really be aware of how important a figure he was, because for us, the only reality we ever knew was the one that Reagan created.

ace, I think the most valuable thing President Reagan gave us was not that "things could change" but that we could change things. His messager to America, over and over again, was that each of us had the power to do great things in small ways that that, together as a nation, we could do anything.

Contrast that with the message you hear from the left and it's prety obvious to me why Reagan's message still resonates right now.

Read some of his speeches (I posted excerpts from a couple, and linked a couple more over on my blog) and you see the power he put into a simple message. That was heady stuff for a 12-year old kid like me in 1980. But it shaped the way I think about the world and our role in it. I still hold those views today because I've never seen a message that was more compelling than his.

Despair? How can we know despair when we wake each morning in the freest nation on Earth? Fear? What is there to fear after we faced the greatest threat the world has ever known in the Soviet Union and beat it? Misery? What financial misery can last in the face of an unfettered American economic machine?

Reagan showed us that it would always be "morning in America" as long as we were determined never to surrender to the dark midnight of self-imposed defeat because surely no external force could defeat a resolute America.

It was a simple message, but it took Reagan to remind us of it.

Tip O'Neill can fry in Hell. Oh, wait... He already is.

Despair? How can we know despair when we wake each morning in the freest nation on Earth? Fear? What is there to fear after we faced the greatest threat the world has ever known in the Soviet Union and beat it? Misery? What financial Misery can last in the face of an unfettered American economic machine?

Reagan showed us that it would always be "morning in America" as long as we were determined never to surrender to the dark midnight of self-imposed defeat because surely no external force could defeat a resolute America."

Truer words were never spoken (or written) nor do could they be more timely than today.

I wish the Senators from Massachusetts, the Congresswoman from San Francisco, the former Vice-President, Howell Raines, Julian Bond, etc. would once and for all commit this country to finding out why the "terrorists" hate us...

And while they're at it, maybe they can explain to us how come home ownership is at an historic high for the nation, including African-Americans, interest rates have remained for months at an all time low, over one million jobs have been produced in the last four months, wages are rising across the board in the work force, the Taliban were routed in under eight weeks (without the terrible Afghan winter, millions of refugees, tens of thousands dead), Bhagdad falls in three weeks, millions liberated, no refugee crisis, under 1000 American troops killed, Saddam captured, Libya capitulates, the UN oil-for-food scandal exposed...

Instead we get:

Quagmire!

Worst foreign policy debacle in the history of this country!

The economy is in tatters!

Racist!

American Imperialists!

BusHitler!

No Blood for Oil!

Halliburton!

We have lost the French as our allies!

We need the UN!!!!

And what, no Stars and Stripes flying in Paris during GWB's State visit & the 60th anniversary of D-Day?!?!?

The dark midnight of self-imposed defeat, indeed.

Reagan was the right man at the right time. I was thinking about him recently, wishing we had a similar leader now.

I think part of my dismay over the GWB presidency is that I thought he could be Reaganesque, especially right after 9/11, but he's fallen so dreadfully short. I think Bush has some Reaganesque impulses, particularly in his clear vision of how we need to overcome terrorism, so much like Reagan's desire to overcome communism. But the slime of Clinton lingers on, and I fear that every president from now on will embrace triangulation and the selling out of his principles.

I took Reagan very much for granted. I was eight years old when he took office, and so I certainly wasn't able to appreciate what a special man he was. I just wish we could have him back.

Ace, I beg to differ with you about a little kid in the 1980s not knowing what great things Reagan was doing. I was born in 1980 and I recall the feelings of nervousness overcome by belief I saw and felt in the adults around me when we were building up our military.

I remember seeing Mr. Reagan's face on TV and hearing his voice after the Challenger blew up. I was too young to understand most of what went on, but I remember the palpable feeling of relief and regirding I sensed in the adults and the older kids and teens around me.

I remember watching the speech Mr. Reagan gave at the Berlin Wall where he said 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' I was six years old. I remember seeing that wall come down not many years later.

Even when I was a little kid, I knew that Reagan was doing something extremely important and that I needed to try to make myself remember it so that later I could tell my friends about it if they forgot.

So, I have to disagree with you. A little kid can remember and can know, even if she didn't completely understand.

Phoenix

The speech he gave "A Time for Choosing" was given in March (I think) of 1964 for Barry Goldwater. It is available to read at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964reagan1.html I was a young mother and had gone to a rally in Denver for Goldwater. I often wonder what would have happened differently if Goldwater had won that election. Dirty political ads, specifically the Daisy ad with the small girl superimposed on a mushroom cloud frightened the voters who still thought it was wrong to use the A-bombs in Japan. I did/do not think we would have had to use it. I further think we would not be in the position we find ourselves in today had the Vietnam war had Barry Goldwater as the Commander in Chief. Lyndon Baines was a traitor as is John F...... Kerry.

We should ask why the left has such an imperative to cast the greatest 20th century president as a lovable dolt and an idiot who got lucky.

Could it be that they don't want to be held accountable to any sort of standards? That they want to live their lives under rotting logs, safe from the light of reason and day?

Their hatred of Ronald Reagan is the left's mantra. Their reasons are suspect, but the voices are so strident you can hear the desperate hope behind them: Don't look too close.

Gorbachev and Reagan did have some kind of cordial relationship;

Of course everyone knows the 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' speech; and there is a chunk of the Berlin Wall at Reagan's presidential library.

That piece was a personal gift to Reagan from Gorbachev after the wall was torn down. Kind of touching.

That piece was a personal gift to Reagan from Gorbachev after the wall was torn down.

I like that.

Many say he is the greatest president since FDR, but you have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find a president of such character.

And speaking of character, Margaret Thatcher is going to the funeral, Drudge rumors say. She's terribly sick, having suffered several strokes, and many reports said she would not be able to attend.

I knew she would make it. I knew it. There is no way on Earth Thatcher would miss that, even if it's the last thing she does. What a great, gutsy, strong woman, and what a great friend to President Reagan.

That piece was a personal gift to Reagan from Gorbachev after the wall was torn down. Kind of touching.

I had heard that he had a piece of the wall but I didn't know the source. You know, after reading the "TOBEY MAGUIRE" comment above, and some more comments from Gorby and other Soviet leaders, I believe that the Soviets were more on Reagan's side than the American left was (and still is)!

Tobey Maguire is very likely a child parroting what some grown-up child told him.

Real communists know they've lost this round.

As with fascism, it will have a new incarnation down the road, and hopefully we will have a stouthearted leader who will help us put it down again.

From Reagan's speech on Point De Hoc (Normandy) 20 years ago:

" Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''
Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all."

I couldn't add more in tribute to the veterans, the fallen, or the man himself.

Godspeed

If Reagan hadn't turned up the heat, the Evil Empire never would have caved. T.P. O'Neill can take what he said and shove it up his ass. Reagan knew exactly what he was doing and did the best he could with limited help and unlimited harassment from Congress. He had the foresight to see that weapons systems and Contra involvement would push the Soviet bloc over the edge while O'Neill, Kerry and the rest of the liberal Congress hobnobbed with Commandante Ortega. RIP Ronnie!