Tribute to President Reagan

Razor Sharp Claws has links to a great collection of Reagan's speeches from throughout his political career. He inherited the presidency from a president who let Americans stay hostage to a radical, lunatic country for more than a year and gave us a recession with double digit inflation (I remember when home loans were at 14%).

The hostages were freed at the very beginning of Reagan's presidency. This was almost surely due to fear on the Iranian's part that this president would actually do something about it. Subsequently, inflation was brought under control. However, the most important achievement was the defeat of Soviet and eastern European communism. Some may say that the cost of this was too high, but in the long run we came out of it into an economic boom that lasted until the end of the 20th century. Reagan's presidency set the stage for prosperity of the 90's and I truly believe we would have experienced this boom under almost any subsequent president.

Bill Clinton reversed many of Reagan's policies, ignored the terrorist attacks that occurred under his administration, and left us weak when the un-ignorable 9/11 attack occurred. Neither George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton had the resolve to fight terrorism head on as President George W. Bush has.

Pray that we have the strength to stay the course this time.