The Blog from the Core - "All Presidents Should Be So Stupid"

"All Presidents Should Be So Stupid"

OpinionJournal runs two retrospective articles on Ronald Reagan, yesterday. First, from Peggy Noonan, who worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan Whitehouse:

.... Ronald Reagan told the truth to a world made weary by lies. He believed truth was the only platform on which a better future could be built. He shocked the world when he called the Soviet Union "evil," because it was, and an "empire," because it was that, too. He never stopped bringing his message to the people of the world, to Europe and China and in the end the Soviet Union. And when it was over, the Berlin Wall had been turned into a million concrete souvenirs, and Soviet communism had fallen. But of course it didn't fall. It was pushed. By Mr. Know Nothing Cowboy Gunslinger Dimwit. All presidents should be so stupid....

Second, a classic op-ed, Nov. 6, 1980, unsigned though I think it was by Robert Bartley:

Ronald Reagan's landslide victory surely represents the voters' rejection of President Carter's management, but it represents far more than that. As the accompanying decimation of the Senate liberals makes unmistakably clear, the voters are also rejecting the ideas and attitudes that have dominated Washington since the days of the Kennedy administration....

The stakes here are enormous; if the Reagan administration fails the nation will not have this opportunity soon again, and will likely lurch in directions quite the opposite of what Mr. Reagan intends. But the opportunity is equally great. If Mr. Reagan can manage the government and make his policies work, we will look back on Tuesday's election as the start of a new era for the nation and the world.