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<\/p>\nThe jelly beans are on my desk, to greet passersby.<\/p>\n
I’ve got a pot of stew in the crock pot, ready for the traditional family dinner, when I tell my kids how unlikely it is they’d have been born but for today’s birthday boy, and why.<\/p>\n
It’s time for the official Shot In The Dark holiday. \u00a0Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 114th birthday.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve been writing about Reagan \u2013 who, along with PJ O\u2019Rourke, Solzhenitzyn, Dostoevskii and Paul Johnson is the reason I\u2019m a conservative today \u2013 as long as this blog has been in existence.\u00a0 His eight years were not perfect, and I don’t beatify my presidents, even if they\u2019ve been out of office for twenty years (to say nothing of in their first month of service).\u00a0 His last term wasn\u2019t as stellar as his first, and his last two years were very difficult.<\/p>\n
Still and all, he was the greatest president of the second half of the 20th Century.<\/p>\n
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But in these difficult times, when a President is promoting fear and malaise in the guise of \u201cchange\u201d and \u201cdoing something\u201d, it\u2019s worth remembering Reagan\u2019s example; when times seemed at their most dire, Reagan walked onto the scene with a smile and a vision, and a backbone of steel, and cleaned up the mess lefty by his failed predecessor \u2013 something our next president will need even more of in 2016.<\/p>\n
And the most important part? He did it by unleashing something that many, then as now, thought was dead \u2013 the inner, optimistic, take-charge greatness of the American spirit.<\/p>\n
Oh, there are those who say “today’s GOP wouldn’t nominate Reagan!” – to which I respond with a contemptuous sign, before telling the critic to listen to “A Time for Choosing”, and tell me who is more resembles; Arne Carlson, or Scott Walker?<\/p>\n