Words.
"As we mark the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, one of our major political parties has become imbued with the Gipper's political philosophy and governing style. I mean the Democrats, of course.
The Republican Party tries to claim the Reagan mantle but has moved so far to the right that it now inhabits its own parallel universe. On the planet that today's GOP leaders call home, Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life.
...None of this is to suggest that the patron saint of modern American conservatism was some sort of flaming liberal, just that he was a pragmatist who respected objective reality. In a big state or a big country, big government was a given.
...Meanwhile, the Republican Party has lost its mind. The GOP argues for deep across-the-board budget cuts of a kind that Reagan ultimately rejected. Party leaders denounce the belief that government can do any good for anybody as "socialism."
Here's a quote that might have come from a Democrat during last fall's tax-cut debate: "We don't seek to aid the rich, but those lower- and middle-income families who are most strapped by taxes and the recession." In fact, Ronald Reagan said those words in 1983, when he was arguing for tuition tax credits. Remind me: Who are the Gipper's true heirs?"
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