{"id":958,"date":"2004-06-06T02:22:04","date_gmt":"2004-06-06T06:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/06\/ronald_wilson_reagan_19112004\/"},"modified":"2004-06-06T02:22:04","modified_gmt":"2004-06-06T06:22:04","slug":"ronald_wilson_reagan_19112004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/06\/ronald_wilson_reagan_19112004\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former President Ronald Reagan died Saturday.
\nI was never a supporter of Reagan’s policies. One of my first vivid political memories is the disappointment I felt when Reagan defeated Carter in 1980. Back in those days, I didn’t follow issues like I do now, but to the extent I did, I wasn’t in Reagan’s camp.
\nBut as a person, Reagan’s personal charm (the “great communicator”) and optimism helped to assuage the ideological tension. This quote<\/a> at the Reagan memorial website illustrates:<\/p>\n

“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A notable contrast to the current fear factor administration.
\nInterestingly, this is the first time I’ve followed the public reaction as America buries a “popular” president. Truman and Johnson died before I was one, and Nixon’s public image was still tarnished when he died ten years ago. Since I was living at college at the time and didn’t have much access to cable TV, this is actually the first time I’ve paid close attention to the burial of any president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Ronald Reagan died Saturday. I was never a supporter of Reagan’s policies. One of my first vivid political memories is the disappointment I felt when Reagan defeated Carter in 1980. Back in those days, I didn’t follow issues like I do now, but to the extent I did, I wasn’t in Reagan’s camp. […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}