In death, Ronald Reagan brought a temporary truce to the bitter partisan warfare in Washington, a city he dominated for eight years with his remarkable political gifts and his bold conservative agenda.
During a week of national mourning and solemn funeral rituals, Democrats and Republicans stood together to praise the nation's 40th president and salute his flag-draped coffin. On the presidential campaign trail, President Bush and John Kerry suspended hostilities, pulling their attack ads and canceling fundraisers. Republicans canonized Reagan as the progenitor of the modern conservative movement and the terminator of the "evil empire," as he once called the Soviet Union. Their Reagan had no flaws as a leader, no failures worth mentioning (I have my own list, starting with Iran-Contra scandal and his record on civil rights).
Democrats who once ridiculed and demonized Reagan spoke respectfully of his "optimism" and ignored his policies. That infuriated conservative commentators like Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for the Washington Post who wrote that dwelling on Reagan's optimism "is the perfect way to trivialize everything Reagan was or did."
I think Krauthammer is wrong. Reagan's optimism was anything but trivial. It was the bright light of his presidency. I think the great public outpouring of affection for Reagan last week had less to do with his policies than it did with his cheerful personality and his "morning in America" optimism. It was exactly what many Americans yearned for after Jimmy Carter's dour presidency. Carter carried his own luggage, wore a cardigan sweater and sold the presidential yacht in his attempt to dismantle what some at the time called the "imperial presidency." He confused the trappings of the office with the abuse of presidential power.
The Reagans understood something the Carters apparently never did - that most Americans don't want a commoner-in-chief but a president who conducts himself in a style befitting the nation's highest office. I remember how Nancy Reagan was savaged - unfairly in my opinion - for buying a complete set of White House china with private donations. Critics saw it as proof of the Reagans' social elitism. But few presidents have connected with ordinary citizens the way Reagan did.
His critics judged Reagan more harshly than he judged them. They ridiculed Reagan as an "amiable dunce," in the words of the late Democratic wise man Clark Clifford, who was more style than substance. But Reagan understood that leadership is as much - if not more - about style as substance. Reagan brought more than a smile and personal charm to the presidency. He also brought a firm set of convictions and political civility - two things conspicuously missing these days on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Reagan and his chief Democratic adversary, the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill, furiously battled each other over policy. But at the end of the day, these two old political warriors, both proud of their Irish heritage, could sit down with each other to lift a beer and swap jokes. For Reagan, these political fights were never personal, never mean-spirited. Even Walter Mondale, whose presidential hopes were buried in a Reagan landslide in 1984, recalled last week how civil that campaign had been.
Now partisan rancor and personal animosity permeate the political atmosphere in Washington. Congressional leaders barely speak to their opposites across the aisle, and the Bush White House treats congressional Democrats as little more than door mats to wipe their feet on. Ronald Reagan had no "enemies" list, and he would hate the kind of poisonous snakepit Washington has become.
The Republicans ruling Washington these days consider themselves hard-core "Reaganites" and the George W. Bush presidency to be Reagan's third term. They are, in fact, Reagan mutants who have less in common with the real thing than they might think. If they want to build on the Gipper's legacy, they should take some important lessons from the way Reagan governed.
Let them remember that the Reagan they glorify was not as ideological as today's self-described Reaganites. He governed as a pragmatist, bargaining with Democrats in Congress when he could and going over their heads to the public if he had to. He spoke out against abortion but never invested much of his political capital to challenge Roe vs. Wade. After winning sizeable tax cuts in 1981, Reagan realized he had gone too far and raised taxes the following year. There were three more tax increases before he left office. He raised the gasoline tax and the payroll tax. And he boosted the corporate tax. Today, even the suggestion of a tax hike is considered ideological heresy by the president and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.
Republicans already are talking about honoring Reagan by putting his image on our currency or naming the Pentagon after him. The greatest honor both Republicans and Democrats could bestow on him would be to restore civility to the political debate in Washington.
