PrintFebruary 1, 2011
What Reagan Meant to America
Ronald Reagan's centennial arrives on Super Bowl Sunday, February 6th, providentially timed for the biggest unofficial holiday of the year, America's folk holiday of the Television Age.Seven years ago, when Reagan died, millions of Americans waited for hours to share a brief moment with this greatest of contemporary Americans. Mourning dead presidents is not unusual: JFK, FDR, and Lincoln all had lavish funerals. Mourning dead presidents who left office fifteen years earlier and who had been out of public life for nearly that long was simply unprecedented -- not only in our national life, but in the life of any modern nation. Reagan was great in a way that transcends our notions of greatness. Why?Reagan, while grasping all the odium of modern leftism, still grasped a happy future, too. The greatest power of the left is the infection of inspiration and the hobbling of hope. Reagan did not overcome that with irrational optimism. He took the...(Read Full Article)
