100-year perspective on Ronald Reagan

I never voted for Ronald Reagan, but on this 100th anniversary of his birth, I have to confess to a great admiration for the man and a belief that historians will rank him among the great presidents.

In 1980, I voted for Jimmy Carter, a good man whose first term had been disappointing to say the least. I voted for him because I thought he was a good man whose heart was in the right place, and because I was a little frightened by Reagan's fiercely confrontational rhetoric. Four years later, I had become a bit of a fan of Reagan's optimism and confidence in the American system. I had never cared much for Walter Mondale, who seemed to me an old-style Democrat wedded to the union bosses and the old solutions. But my wife couldn't stand Ronald Reagan (she had threatened to move to Australia if he were elected in 1980), so I left the presidential choice blank in 1984 as a way of "ensuring domestic tranquility."

My admiration for Reagan doubled in 1993 when he wrote a heart-felt farewell to the American people, announcing that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. That short note was one of the best writing he ever produced, and it was quintessentially Reagan. In a new book, his son Ron suggests that Alzheimer's was already affecting his father before he left the White House. Historians aren't so sure. Regardless, when the diagnosis was confirmed, he faced his fate with all of the dignity, confidence, courage and equanimity that the American people had come to expect from him.

How will historians judge Reagan? Already, his star is on the rise. He has to rank as one of the major political figures of the post-World War II world. He altered the discussion of government and taxes. Unfortunately, some who now claim Reagan's mantle forget that he raised taxes, compromised with Democrats, negotiated treaties with the Soviet Union, supported civil rights legislation, called for a nuclear weapons-free world and sought practical solutions over ideological purity. History — not GOP efforts to deify a false image of him — will ultimately gauge Reagan's greatness, but from today's perspective, I think he will rank among the top half-dozen presidents, even though I never voted for him.