Letters to the Editor
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Reagan was a mean-spirited fellow
But Obama's assessment of Reagan's impact is accurate. Reagan changed the discourse of American politics and his successors, Bush, Clinton, Bush, sang to Reagan's tune. Reagan may have directed the wave of "welfare queen" rhetoric, for example, but it took Mr. Clinton to actually gut welfare programs. The Clintons abandoned single-payer health care because of the Reaganesque criticism that it was "socialized medicine."
Obama's point is well-taken, we need a new era that answers Reagan the way Reagan cast himself as answering FDR.