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<\/p>\nToday would be Ronald Reagan’s 106th birthday.<\/p>\n
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 almost thirty\u00a0years.\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, after two terms of\u00a0a President who promoted \u00a0fear 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
The best we can hope for from our current president is that he approaches the job with the same tenacity to match his vision that Reagan had.<\/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