Well the pure at heart must not let apostates such as myself sully the memory of Saint Reagan.

Needless to say Ronald Reagan himself would be horrified to see and hear other Republicans using his memory to attack another Republican, especially Senator John McCain, but what the hell, he is not here so they can say what they please.

I was alive and well when Reagan was President, I remember the man. He was very strong when it came to go after the Soviet Union, but he did not spend a lot of time worrying about Mexicans.

He was also the guy who came up with the 11th Commandment, do not speak ill of a fellow Republican. I am pointing out that the world has changed since then. What people think of as conservative issues has changed.

Reagan was a politician who understood that more could be gained by compromise than constant name calling, finger pointing and intraparty conflict.

hehe…TerreL do you deliberately misrepresent Reagan or do you simply misunderstand him? Did you happen to notice the second paragraph where he described the majority as conservative?

Three weeks ago here in our nationís capital I told a group of conservative scholars that we are currently in the midst of a re-ordering of the political realities that have shaped our time. We know today that the principles and values that lie at the heart of conservatism are shared by the majority

Did you happen to notice where he was giving that speech? CPAC. Do you know how conservative they are, have been and will always be?

Reagan was no moderate…trying to portray him as such is dishonest. He created a revolution in Government and that is not the actions of a moderate.

I don’t think that it is that simple, Reagan going left when he had to and McCain going right when he had do. McCain has always been a fiscal conservative, and he is prolife.

Issues like global warming were not even around in Reagan’s day. No one talked about same sex marriage. When a suicide bomber blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Reagan did not stay and fight, he hightailed it out of there. He was involved in some questionable dealings with the mullahs. The world has changed a lot since then. I just do not think that is a fair characterization.

As for Ronald Reagan, I am old enough to remember the man and he was not a right wing ideologue. In fact there were many times in his career when he had to do political battle with the people in his own party he referred to as the “radical right”. He was a believer in compromise and consensus building.

The right today has refused to move forward or recognize the fact that it is not 1985 anymore. They have created this myth around Reagan and his tenure in office that bears scant resemblance to the real man or his era. If he were around today they would probably call him Ronaldo and demand that he be impeached for selling us out to Mexico, or some such lunacy.

As for McCain and the fence, I think it will be built, but I also think people underestimated the hassles that would be encountered by the people who live there. There have been lawsuits, property disputes, questions about where the border really is. We forget there are landholdings and communities on that border that go way back before the Civil War, before the War with Mexico in fact. So this might get complicated. But it will happen and when it does the hardliners will complain that is not good enough.

As for Reagan, this is one of my favorite quotes:

Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth of a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority. Replace it with the reality of a majority trying to assert its rights against the tyranny of powerful academics, fashionable left-revolutionaries, some economic illiterates who happen to hold elective office and the social engineers who dominate the dialogue and set the format in political and social affairs. If there is any ideological fanaticism in American political life, it is to be found among the enemies of freedom on the left or rightóthose who would sacrifice principle to theory, those who worship only the god of political, social and economic abstractions, ignoring the realities of everyday life. They are not conservatives.

Pierre Legrand, no problem. I rarely ban comments, but yours are intelligent and on point (not ad hominems) so I wouldn’t even consider it. Welcome.

But one need only listen to Reagan’s 1964 clarion call to freedom to understand that he was no McCain. He did not give that speech because it was popular but because it was required. You cannot say that he was pandering to conservatives because he was in fact defining them. As a politician Reagan went left when he had to…whereas McCain goes right when he has to.

No doubt I will vote for McCain but it is not for McCain as much as it is against the other two flakes.

Finally I find it odd that a wordsmith such as yourself would misunderstand my saying Levin’s article was brilliant. That is not the same thing as saying he is brilliant.