My wife and I attended a 100th birthday party for Ronald Reagan last weekend. Our neighbor's living room was appropriately decorated with a life size cutout of the Gipper, the coffee tables had bowls of jellybeans on them, the big screen TV played Reagan's greatest hits, such as the "tear down this wall" speech, the "evil empire" speech and the comfort he gave to a mourning nation after the Challenger accident when he poetically spoke about the astronauts that "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
We debated about his greatest accomplishments. Was it the steady pressure put on the Soviet Union and the leadership with reluctant European partners that caused the U.S.S.R. to buckle? Was it the political air cover given to Paul Volker, breaking the insidious back of inflation? Was it lowering confiscatory tax rates setting off a multiyear economic boom and twenty year bull market? Was it putting the brakes on suffocating government growth and regulation? It was all of those things and more.
But what made Reagan truly great was his humility and his desire to push power away from himself and Washington to individuals and the states. He understood that government that governs best governs least and governs locally. It wasn't simply his communication skills that made him so popular; it was that what he communicated was in synch with the American psyche.
So it was almost obscene that liberal pundits recently referred to President Obama's State of the Union speech as "Reaganesque." Please. Obama is the anti-Reagan.
He has effectively undone welfare reform with extended unemployment benefits.
He has slashed funding for missile defense that Reagan refused to conced to Gorbachev and handed the Russians veto power over its deployment.
In contrast the the "Shining City on a Hill" narrative of Reagan, Obama has spent much of his first two years trotting around the world apologizing for the U.S.
He engineered a government takeover of 1/6 of the U.S. economy, while Reagan championed the private sector.
He has attacked state sovereignty by suing Arizona over immigration and Texas over environmental regulation. Reagan fought to devolve power to the states.
Reagan took a stand against public sector unions by firing the air traffic controllers. The Obama administration has coddled, fed and growth them.
Reagan had close, personal relationships with the leaders of our Western partners, especially with Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher. Obama has no such close relationships and has overtly given Great Britain and Israel the back of the hand. And at the same time, he has attempted to reach out to our greatest enemy, radical Islam. His attorney general cannot even utter the term.
Reagan understood that government isn't the solution to our problems; it IS the problem. For Obama, there isn't an area of life that is off limits to the government.
Reagan courageously stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and, even in defiance of this own state department implored Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Two summers ago when Iranian citizens took to the streets in defiance of the Islamic thugocracy, Obama stood in silence.
No wonder that a group of us gathered together last weekend and felt nostalgic. Obama is as far away from being Reaganesque as I am from playing in the NBA.
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