Maybe that first gigantic deficit the Reaganites piled up was an accident just a combination of deluded 'supply side' tax cuts and a huge bag of good stuff for the Pentagon. But pretty quickly conservatives discovered that deficits when done correctly did something really cool: deficits defunded the Left.

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years which rejected it.

Global political conditions make a direct American intervention difficult but President Reagan's messianic and visceral attitude toward the Nicaraguan revolution could mean it will happen as an act of desperation.

The day before the anniversary of D-Day we lost a man who was equaled by few and surpassed by none as a leader in the cause of freedom: Ronald Reagan.

I think we need one recognized respected public figure to make a tough blunt statement on just what Reagan's record is and what he might do to the country let alone the Republican Party before Christmas.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America but I remember as being a very very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air the punk rock movement made sense.

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.