Text of the Vice President’s Remarks At Reagan Service

“Mrs. Reagan, members of the President’s family, colleagues, distinguished guests, members of the diplomatic corps, fellow citizens:

Knowing that this moment would come has not made it any easier to see the honor guard, and the flag draped before us, and to begin America’s farewell to President Ronald Reagan. He said goodbye to us in a letter that showed his great courage and love for America. Yet for his friends and for his country, the parting comes only now. And in this national vigil of mourning, we show how much America loved this good man, and how greatly we will miss him.

A harsh winter morning in 1985 brought the inaugural ceremony inside to this Rotunda. And standing in this place for the 50th presidential inauguration, Ronald Reagan spoke of a nation that was “hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair.” That was how he saw America, and that is how America came to know him. There was a kindness, simplicity, and goodness of character that marked all the years of his life.

When you mourn a man of 93, no one is left who remembers him as a child in his mother’s arms. Ronald Wilson Reagan’s life began in a time and place so different from our own, in a quiet town on the prairie, on the 6th of February, 1911. Nelle and Jack Reagan would live long enough to see the kind of man they had raised, but they could never know all that destiny had in store for the boy they called Dutch. And if they could witness this scene in 2004, their son taken to his rest with the full honors of the United States, they would be so proud of all he had done with the life they gave him, and the things they taught him.

President Reagan once said, “I learned from my father the value of hard work and ambition, and maybe a little something about telling a story.” That was the Ronald Reagan who confidently set out on his own from Dixon, Illinois during the Great Depression, the man who would one day speak before cameras and crowds with such ease and self-command. “From my mother,” said President Reagan, “I learned the value of prayer. My mother told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God’s plan, even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best.” This was the Ronald Reagan who had faith, not just in his own gifts and his own future, but in the possibilities of every life. The cheerful spirit that carried him forward was more than a disposition; it was the optimism of a faithful soul, who trusted in God’s purposes, and knew those purposes to be right and true.

He once said, “There’s no question I am an idealist, which is another way of saying I am an American.” We usually associate that quality with youth, and yet one of the most idealistic men ever to become president was also the oldest. He excelled in professions that have left many others jaded and self-satisfied, and yet somehow remained untouched by the worst influences of fame or power. If Ronald Reagan ever uttered a cynical, or cruel, or selfish word, the moment went unrecorded. Those who knew him in his youth, and those who knew him a lifetime later, all remember his largeness of spirit, his gentle instincts, and a quiet rectitude that drew others to him.

Seen now, at a distance, his strengths as a man and as a leader are only more impressive. It’s the nature of the city of Washington that men and women arrive, leave their mark, and go their way. Some figures who seemed quite large and important in their day are sometimes forgotten, or remembered with ambivalence. Yet nearly a generation after the often impassioned debates of the Reagan years, what lingers from that time is almost all good. And this is because of the calm and kind man who stood at the center of events.

We think back with appreciation for the decency of our 40th president, and respect for all that he achieved. After so much turmoil in the ’60s and ’70s, our nation had begun to lose confidence, and some were heard to say that the presidency might even be too big for one man. That phrase did not survive the 1980s. For decades, America had waged a Cold War, and few believed it could possibly end in our own lifetimes. The President was one of those few. And it was the vision and will of Ronald Reagan that gave hope to the oppressed, shamed the oppressors, and ended an evil empire. More than any other influence, the Cold War was ended by the perseverance and courage of one man who answered falsehood with truth, and overcame evil with good.

Ronald Reagan was more than an historic figure. He was a providential man, who came along just when our nation and the world most needed him. And believing as he did that there is a plan at work in each life, he accepted not only the great duties that came to him, but also the great trials that came near the end. When he learned of his illness, his first thoughts were of Nancy. And who else but Ronald Reagan could face his own decline and death with a final message of hope to his country, telling us that for America there is always a bright dawn ahead. Fellow Americans, here lies a graceful and a gallant man.

Nancy, none of us can take away the sadness you are feeling. I hope it is a comfort to know how much he means to us, and how much you mean to us as well. We honor your grace, your own courage, and above all, the great love that you gave to your husband. When these days of ceremony are completed, the nation returns him to you for the final journey to the West. And when he is laid to rest under the Pacific sky, we will be thinking of you, as we commend to Almighty the soul of His faithful servant, Ronald Wilson Reagan. ”

We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.

In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.

Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause – what Arnold Bennett once called `the great cause of cheering us all up’. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation – and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure.

And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery `Whatever time I’ve got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs’.

And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan’s life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.

Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom.

Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.

Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War – not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends.

I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: `Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.’ Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president.

As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles – and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively.

When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.

When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew `the Old Man’ would never wear.

When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership.

And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.

Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform.

Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s `evil empire’. But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.

So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity – and nothing was more American.

Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for – freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.

As an actor in Hollywood’s golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country.

He was able to say `God Bless America’ with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-countrymen to make sacrifices for America – and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue.

With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world – in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself – the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer “God Bless America”.

Ronald Reagan’s life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.

On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: `Nancy came along and saved my soul’. We share her grief today. But we also share her pride – and the grief and pride of Ronnie’s children.

For the final years of his life, Ronnie’s mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again – more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven’s morning broke, I like to think – in the words of Bunyan – that `all the trumpets sounded on the other side’.

We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God’s children.”

The Genius is gone.

I just watched him the other night with Travis Tritt… what a show that was, and what an entertainer he was.

Slings And Arrows posts part of a NYT article which seems to answer the questions about saddam and WMD;

“Mr. Perricos accompanied his briefing with a report showing satellite photos of a fully built-up missile site near Baghdad in May 2003 and the same site denuded in February 2004.”

Read the link; there’s more.

The reason you’ve not heard in the news about a G8 protest is that in practical terms, there wasn’t one.
Dizzy Girl has photos of the about 500 or so people that did show up. she says, among other things, only about 100 of these were actual protestors… another 400 apparently took pity on the people trying to raise a protest.

Laughable.

And, another Bush success story the press won’t touch. Did anyone notice the Iraqi Prime Minister there at the G8 summit, and his repeated statements at the summit thanking the US for their toppling Saddam, and for heir continued efforts in Iraq?

Once again, the pattern gets followed; if Bush gets helped by the story, the story makes the bit bucket, but no further.

Podhoretz in the New York Post this monring, making pretty much the same arguments he made on C-Span yesterday morning:

“MEMO to all those who believe that Ronald Reagan is being unfairly lionized in death: Bring it on. ”
…
“OK, Tom and Dave. Let’s talk about AIDS, shall we? The disease was first identified in 1981. According to the Congressional Research Service, in the course of the Reagan presidency the federal government spent a total of $5.7 billion on AIDS alone. No individual disease or epidemic received as much. Period.

But let’s be honest. What the people who issue this criticism are complaining about has little or nothing to do with AIDS funding. Rather, they were and are unhappy with Ronald Reagan because he did not agree to turn the bully pulpit into a gay-rights pulpit. They thought AIDS should be the means whereby moral traditionalists would discard the totality of tradition and see no difference between the homosexual lifestyle and the defined domestic arrangements of time immemorial. ”

Read it all.

Michelle Malkin has started her own Blog. She writes very wel indeed in long form. I wonder how she’ll do in the hit and run style Blogs usually end up in.

Of course, I asked that about myself a little over a year back when I started this one, too.

Anyway, drop by her place.

New York Post is running a story today:

“June 9, 2004 — DAN Rather and Tom Brokaw work for different networks but agree one thing …. Coverage of Ronald Reagan’s death has been excessive, they say. “

Even Jennings has ‘mixed feelings’ about the coverage of the Reagan proceedings, says the story. And that these anchors have made all these comments, suggests that some underling, trying to make headlines out of hteir OWN thoughts, has called them to ask for an interview, and as a paryt of that interview, has asked these anchors these questions. Clearly more than just these three in the news biz think this way. The line of thought extends down into the bowels of leftist pressdom.

Hmmmmm. Well, now, let’s see here. 

These comments, these feelings, are from a press that couldn’t be bothered to report on pre-911 abuses, and in fact now admits to having consciously hidden some stories from the region, so as not to tee off the Tyrant, but now gleefully expounds hour after hour on the one time incident at Abu Girabe.

This is a press who can’t be bothered to give us any of the huge number of positive stories out of that same Iraq today.

This is the same press that constantly reminds us, at the bidding of John Kerry’s advisors, that Mr. Kerry is a ‘nam vet, and yet to this day still hasn’t gotten the nature of Mr. Bush’s service correctly.

This is a press that after giving us dire predictions about the state of the economy going forward, is mute on the explodingly good economic situation we find ourselves in just now.

So, might these same press wonks have some MOTIVE behind wanting to limit the coverage of Mr. Reagan, do you suppose?

Personally, I wish Jimmy Carter a long life, but I can’t help but wonder what will happen, how the press will react to Jimmy Carter’s death, when it happens. Will anyone ask if we’re paying to much attention to his funeral?

Don’t hold your breath.

The Globe and Mail is reporting this morning:

Will Bithead call this a snub of the United States?
Darned right, I will.

Oh, I know… Martin has an election he’s concerned about. At least, that’ll be the excuse given. But if this is an example of the way he deals in foreign affairs, it’s an election he and his government deserve to lose flat out, on tha point alone… and that’s to say nothing of the rest of the matter of the state Canada has been left in with the Liberal governments there. Should it be pointed out that Martin has also opted out of the G-8 Summit?

Get used to hearing the phrase “Prime Minister Stephen Harper.”.

I just caught some footage on the tube of the crowds in Simi Valley, trying to get to pay respects to President Reagan. Report after report from around the country piles in, including some freinds of mine out in SouCal (Thanks,Peter) telling the story; at least 40,000 people had gone though the room where Mr. Reagan’s body lies, as of 8am, PT. I’m seeing unofficial figures from folks on scene there, approaching three times that as of an hour ago. They’ve even got shuttle busses coming from Moorpark College. reports have it that they’ve already extended viewing hours, because of the crowds, which even caught library staffers off guard.

One more striking point is the number of people who were in line who weren’t of voting age when he was president. Clearly, these folks have a clear concept of heritage.

It strikes me that the miles-long lines and the even longer lines of cars filled with even more people, people of all shapes, sizes, some dressed in sunday best, some looking like they’re going to the beach, but all silent and respectful..all trying to file past his remains…. what they are doing is nothing short of creating a living memorial to what he stood for.

It strikes me further that all the denials from the naysayers, will not overcome this response we’re seeing today. In my writing of this blog, I have written often enough about the real idiots in the world, such as Rall, and the Moonbats.

But once again, because of Mr. Reagan, I’m feeling better about the state of America than I have in some time; I’m reminded of the good people that are out there. Amazing how, even now after he’s gone, that he has that effect, don’t you think?

Captain Ed gets online to spread the news:

“…the First Mate has her new kidney and it’s functioning already! I spoke to the surgeon in charge about a half-hour ago, and he was very pleased. No complications, she was stable throughout surgery, and while she was still getting closed up, he thought the whole thing went very well.”

Stop by CQ and drop some greets.

Oh,a nd speaking of Jimmy Carter….1010 WINS in NY is reporting :

“The third and final Seawolf-class submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter, will be christened June 5. ”

Ironic, that this machine of war will do more for the cause of peace than it’s namesake ever could. I wonder if that lesson is lost on the Democrats.

I gather the Navy isn’t overly excited by the name of this ship. I can’t imagine those serving aboard her wouldn’t have mixed feelings about it.

Miles of cars, miles long lines of people on foot wanting to pay their respects to Mr. Reagan, is the reports we’re hearing on the audio lines just now. Word is of waits of 10 hours and more.

These kinds of numbers cannot be made up, nor can the other falouts from this be sheilded against, I think.

So, President Reagan dies.
Who does PBS do an extended thing on last nght?
Jimmy Carter.

Oh, THAT liberal slant, huh?

Cal Thomas has a good tribute peice up on the WATIMES site.