Happy Birthday, Mr. President

I am not much for second-guessing what dead politicians would be saying and doing about present-day issues, if they were around today. I don’t care to hear that Ike would be considered a socialist, that Barry Goldwater would be on the forefront of progressive immigrant reform in Arizona, or that President Kennedy’s call for service to country is evidence that he would be an independent today.

But, on the eve of President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, this is good. From Cynthia Tucker, columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

I would admit, however, that Reagan’s legacy seems less outrageous in retrospect. That’s because the current crop of Republicans is so much more partisan and so much less practical. While every Republican presidential hopeful since 1988 has tried to wrap him/herself in Reagan’s legacy, it’s not clear that the actual Ronald Reagan — the president who actually led the nation for eight years — would survive the brutal litmus tests of the current GOP and its tea party faction.

"By today’s standards, the Gipper would easily qualify for status as a back-stabbing, treacherous RINO [Republican in Name Only],” wrote Tax Analysts contributing editor Martin Sullivan, in an article for Tax Notes in May. That’s because he compromised with Democrats and raised taxes — more than once.

I suppose I like that rather than assuming where President Reagan would stand on the tax issue today, Tucker simply puts his actions into (present-day) historical perspective. A much more intellectually valid enterprise.