Beloved by his friends and admirers and respected by his foes and adversaries. What more could you want in a great leader? Also, humble, genuinely good-natured and funny when the occasion called for it. A great man and the greatest President in my lifetime. Happy 99th RWR...
- Freed the Hostages held in Iran for over a year under Jimmy Carter (they feared Reagan-note the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look-alike in the highlights)
- Survived an assassination attempt 69 days into his presidency
- Lifted the "malaise" the country was cast under during the Carter years
- Lowered the Misery Index that sky-rocketed under Carter
(the twin towers of double digit inflation and double digit high interest rates)
- Crushed the Evil Empire - the Soviet Union
(I never realized before how great a speech the Evil Empire speech truly was)
- Brought down the Berlin Wall
- Crushed Mohamar Ghadafi - the first "terrorist"
- Comforted the nation after the Challenger disaster (as well as the nations school-children who were watching the flight because the first school teacher to go into space was on it)
- Brought us Peace through Strength
- Brought us limited, smaller government and more liberty and freedom
- Changed the course of government through three small words "We the People"
- Returned "Power to the People" - "Reagan's Regiments"
- Renewed National Pride - Informed Patriotism
- Renewed the concept of America as "The Shining City on the Hill"
all of these are accomplishments and concepts are brought back in some of these highlights and speeches.
This is what a gifted orator sounds like.
He concluded his farewell address with the following words that personified what he brought to America and what he left us with but what, since he left, we have somehow forgotten: his wonderful vision of this country and for this country:
Reagan's vision:
I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.----
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
This was a monumental speech that fundamentally changed the course of recent history, IMO.
The "Evil Empire" speech - March 8, 1983
Address to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida that would come to represent Reagan's view of the Soviet Union. Reagan defends America's Judeo-Christian traditions against the Soviet Union's totalitarian leadership and lack of religious faith, expressing his belief that these differences are at the heart of the fight between the two nations.
Reagan to Gorbachev - "Tear down this wall" - June 12, 1987
The speech - abbreviated
The speech -in it's entirety
The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion - January 28, 1986
Speaking to the country and the nations children who were in utter shock and dismay. This was to be the night of the State of the Union address. Reagan, with the help of his gifted speech writer Peggy Noonan somehow found the proper words to memorialize the astronauts and help comfort and heal the nation in mourning.
Reagan delivered a speech written by Peggy Noonan in which he said:
The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave... We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'
The great Reagan humor:
Responding to a question about playing the "blame game":
Reagan's Farewell Address - "A Shining City on the Hill" and Patriotism
Part I
Part II
Reagan on the values of Patriotism - "National Pride and Informed Patriotism"
Once again speaking to and about the youth of America and American values.
Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.-------
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-'60s.
But now, we're about to enter the '90s, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs production [protection].
So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important—why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.
And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.
Final Tribute to Ronald Reagan
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