Remembering JFK

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It is hard to imagine John F. Kennedy at 100, but that is what he would be if he still lived on this day in 2017.

Of course, Kennedy is not still living. He has been dead nearly 54 years. He was assassinated in the streets of this very city.

His image is frozen in memory, a vivid yet moving figure for those old enough to remember him, a youthful image in the history books for those who are not. He is still 46 years old and will continue to be 46 years old for all who study history — even though all who are 46 now or will be 46 in the future were born after he died.

He will always be youthful, a naturally dark–haired president with two young children and a beautiful young wife. But that wife and one of those children are dead now, and the surviving child will be 60 later this year.

Time certainly does march on.

I observed on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination that so much has been written about that event in American history that it is hard to think of anything new to add. It is the same with the 100th anniversary of Kennedy's birth. (Excuse a little musing here, but since today is the centennial of JFK's birth, wouldn't it make sense, for consistency's sake, to call the 2013 anniversary of his assassination a semicentennial?)

Only a few months before her own death, Marilyn Monroe serenaded the president with a breathy rendition of "Happy Birthday." Even though he is not with us, perhaps that is the best we can do — wish him a "Happy Birthday" in absentia.

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It is easy to think of the Kennedy highlights — his inspirational speeches, his vigorous and reassuring demeanor. It is tougher to challenge preconceived notions about Kennedy that have had decades to harden in the public mind.

So without wasting much time on discussions (bordering on debates) of his strengths or weaknesses, it is probably best to remember that John F. Kennedy was a man. He wasn't perfect and certainly didn't seem so to the people of his time, but no president has been, even those presidents we honor and admire today — like Washington or Lincoln. He had his flaws, like all of us, but he also had a moral compass, like most of us, and it was to the great fortune of this nation that his compass did not mislead either him or us.

As today is Memorial Day, I would just like to observe that all who serve our country are deserving of our gratitude — from those who serve in the Oval Office to those who serve on the battlefield and all those who serve and have served in between. Man of them are also in absentia.

To those presidents like Kennedy who served in both the Oval Office and the battlefield, we owe a special debt for their service.

The Centennial of a 'Humble Healer'

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"I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking."

Gerald Ford

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Today would have been Gerald Ford's 100th birthday. He didn't miss being here for it by much, either. He was 93 when he died in December of 2006.

He lived longer than any other president. So far.

As nearly as I can tell, not much of a fuss is being made about the centennial — except maybe in Ford's hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., where the Grand Rapids Symphony planned a Ford tribute in its Independence Day "Picnic Pops" performance — with the focus being on a special composition written in Ford's honor titled "One of Us, Portrait of A Humble Healer."

This weekend, there have been all sorts of activities in Grand Rapids, and the Vail Daily News in Vail, Colo., where Ford took his ski vacations, says "[t]he valley will stop for a few moments" in Ford's honor.

Other than that, though, there doesn't seem to be much of a fuss, as I said earlier.

In Omaha, Neb., the town where Ford was born, the Omaha World–Herald reports that, while the occasion "will be marked with no pomp and circumstance ... America's 38th president won't be forgotten."

A recent Pew Research Center article observed that, in a Gallup poll last year, a majority of respondents said Ford was an average president, neither above nor below average.

Those who remember the Ford presidency are bound to have differing opinions of him — and that is true of all presidents, even those who have been judged by history to be among the greats. Most folks probably would say Ford was humble. Fewer probably would call him a healer, but I think nearly everyone would agree that Ford was a decent guy.

He was what people of my parents' generation called a "stand–up" guy.

Rarely is there that kind of agreement on any president. But, when compared to the dark, dour and paranoid presidency of Ford's predecessor, Richard Nixon, I guess just about anyone would look like a decent guy.

Ford really was. But he is primarily judged for what was perceived at the time to be a decidedly indecent act — his pardon of Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974, about a month after he took office. Regardless of the general decency of the man, he continues to be judged by many on the basis of that single act.

And that was/is understandable. Nixon's popularity had dropped into the 20s by the time of his resignation. Most of Nixon's fellow Republicans in Congress — on whom Nixon had been counting to keep him from being convicted in an impeachment trial in the Senate — turned on him when the Supreme Court ordered him to turn over the tapes he had been refusing to surrender for months, and the "smoking gun" that proved his early involvement in the Watergate coverup was revealed.

There was a lot of bitterness in the country over the fact that Nixon had dragged the nation through a two–year investigation, protesting his innocence all the while, only to be indisputably shown to be a liar, and, even though there were those who believed an ex–president should not be sent to prison, many more Americans wanted Nixon to stand trial in a court, where he would have to tell the truth or face additional criminal charges.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, it removed any possibility that Nixon would have to face the legal music. That made many Americans angry — enough, some political analysts would say, that it cost Ford election to the presidency in his own right two years later.

Until the end of his life, Ford would say — and not without some justification — that pardoning Nixon was the only way for the country to put Watergate behind it and focus on the sputtering economy.

It was the kind of remark a decent, stand–up kind of guy would make — as were Ford's remarks in his first State of the Union speech in January 1975.

"I must say to you," Ford said, "that the state of the Union is not good: Millions of Americans are out of work. Recession and inflation are eroding the money of millions more. Prices are too high, and sales are too slow. This year’s federal deficit will be about $30 billion; next year's probably $45 billion. The national debt will rise to over $500 billion. Our plant capacity and productivity are not increasing fast enough. We depend on others for essential energy. Some people question their government's ability to make hard decisions and stick with them; they expect Washington politics as usual."

Tell the truth. Can you imagine any other president in your lifetime being quite that blunt with the American people?

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I have often reflected on Ford's decision in late 1973 to accept Nixon's nomination of him to fill the vice presidential vacancy left by the resignation of Spiro Agnew. I have wondered what it was like. In hindsight, it seems somewhat inevitable that Ford would become first vice president and then president. But there must have been a time — however brief it may have been — when Ford's decision had not been made, and it still was possible that he might turn Nixon down.

I always wonder to whom Nixon might then have offered the vice presidency — and how that might have changed America and the world.

Some 16 months earlier, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern had to do something similar when his running mate was dropped and a new one had to be selected. He offered the spot to just about every prominent Democrat, and they all turned him down — until he got to Sargent Shriver.

McGovern never made his offer in public so there are no recordings of those Democrats turning him down — but they always wound up in the news. The details were only made public — if at all — in books or interviews long after the fact.

I have no memory of anyone other than Ford being offered the vice presidency in 1973, but I can imagine a few of the thoughts that must have gone through his mind when the offer was made. And, based on what I know of Ford, I'm sure he consulted his wife, Betty, before giving Nixon an answer.

He always claimed he expected to be something of a place filler for the rest of Nixon's term, and then he would retire to Michigan when it was over. He apparently accepted the vice presidency with no expectation that he would be president. He figured Nixon would ride out the storm.

Well, that was his story. And maybe that really was what he believed. But my memory is that Nixon's approval ratings took a serious hit when it was revealed in the Watergate hearings (coincidentally, a couple of days after Ford's 60th birthday) that there had been a secret taping system in the White House.

That meant that there was a witness that could verify what Nixon and his associates had said in their meetings after the Watergate break–in. The only real question at the time was whether the witness' account would be heard. Would Nixon be able to run out the clock on his term before that account was heard?

Although Nixon and his lawyers tried every legal trick in the book, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in the summer of 1974 — several months after Ford's confirmation as vice president and more than two years before Nixon's term was due to end — that Nixon had to relinquish the tapes to the investigators.

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In those tapes was the "smoking gun" that ended Nixon's presidency.

At that point, most people seemed to realize that it was just a matter of time — and not much of that — before Nixon would be leaving office. By then, Ford must have been anticipating the massive changes that were about to take place in his life.

Ford certainly didn't give the country politics as usual, even though one of his earliest acts was dismissed as such by many Americans. He was like a breath of fresh air when he became president, which is no doubt why so many Americans felt betrayed when he pardoned Nixon.

To continue with the breath of fresh air analogy, it was like breathing fresh oxygen for four weeks after a steady diet carbon dioxide — only to suddenly inhale carbon dioxide again without warning. There was a national coughing spasm.

There was a lot of raw emotion in the Watergate era, and I have often wondered if Ford might not have encountered such a hostile reaction had he waited longer to issue the pardon.

Some economists of the time felt it was urgent to put Nixon and Watergate behind the country so full attention could be given to the economy. But if their counsel prompted Ford to issue the pardon when he did, those economists did both the nation and the new president a disservice.

Although I disagreed, I always felt Ford truly believed it was essential for the country to move forward, and pardoning Nixon was the only way to do that — while he never managed to completely regain the trust he lost when he pardoned Nixon, Ford was an upfront kind of guy, determined to press on no matter how great the adversity.

And the adversity for Ford in the 1976 presidential campaign only got worse when John Dean, the man who first exposed the Watergate coverup, wrote in his book about the scandal that he had heard from another source that Ford had been involved in efforts to postpone a congressional investigation into Watergate until after the 1972 election, which would have made him an accessory.

I came from a family of Nixon haters, but I was willing to give Ford the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was sincere when he said his motivation was to move the country forward. Perhaps it was that quality that made him an All–America center/linebacker and the acknowledged team leader at Michigan in the 1930s. (It was said Ford "would stay and fight in a losing cause.")

Perhaps that trait was honed even earlier, in his days as a Boy Scout.

Whatever the origin may have been, it forced even Ford's political adversaries to admit to a certain amount of admiration for the way he carried himself before, after and during his presidency.

The Paradoxical Century of Nixon

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"The greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes; because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. ... Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember: Others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win, unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

Richard Nixon (1913–1994)
Farewell address, Aug. 9, 1974

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Today is the centennial of Richard Nixon's birth.

That is an odd thing to realize, remembering the Nixon years as I do. I was only a child at the time, but I was old enough to understand that America's young people were protesting being sent halfway around the world to fight in a war that few of them seemed to support.

Or that blacks were rioting in all of the major cities in the United States.

It was a strange and confusing time, an unsettling time in America and the world when Nixon finally won the presidency 45 years ago — and the American people probably couldn't have elected a stranger man president.

Nor, I suppose, could they have elected a more intelligent president.

Nixon was an enigma during his life. He remains so nearly 20 years after his death.

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"Do you want to make a point, or do you want to make a change? Do you want to get something off your chest, or do you want to get something done?"

Nixon campaign speech, 1968

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In the years that have passed since the end of the Nixon presidency, I have often reflected on him and wondered which of the Nixons the public saw was the real Nixon — the one who seemed to so earnestly pursue the label of peacemaker or the often–crude, conniving Nixon of the White House tapes.

I'm inclined to think that, somewhere in between, the truth lies.

But one thing of which I am certain at this time, when Nixon's Republican Party is looking for a way to recapture the U.S. Senate and the White House, is that the GOP can learn some important things from Nixon's career.

Nixon wasn't quite the right–winger that modern political observers may think of when they think of the Republican Party. In his day, right–wingers could be found in both parties, but even then, Nixon wasn't a conventional Republican.

For one thing, he wasn't exactly an advocate of smaller government. Well, not entirely. He founded the Environmental Protection Agency. He was also behind the federal government's first affirmative action program.

During the Nixon presidency, "liberal" and "conservative" were not the most popular terms that were used to describe the existing political divide. "Hawk" and "dove," which were really more about military/foreign policy, were heard more frequently in those days.

That's because everything, it seemed, was seen through the prism of international conflict — in much the same way, things today are seen through the narrow prism of social issues.

Things are interrelated, though, which is what I often think modern politicos overlook. Nixon didn't. He was a true centrist, and the proof, I think, can be found in the fact that he often drew fire from both liberals and conservatives.

The nature of politics is that if a decision is made that will benefit one group, it must affect another group in an adverse way. If something is given to someone, it must be taken from someone else. Nixon sought to be at the center of the imaginary scale, where losses could be minimized.

But it also minimized the gains. Nixon won re–election by one of the widest margins in American history, but he was forced from office less than two years later. His majority was not permanent.

Nixon was a proponent of the triangulation theory long before it was applied to things like the assassination of President Kennedy. It was at the heart of his famous trips to Russia and China in 1972.

Nixon played one against the other that year. He certainly appeared to be motivated by a desire to "get something done," to be, as he said in his first inaugural address, a peacemaker.

But his motives weren't always clear. And, while I realize Nixon's flaws were many, that may have been his greatest — that he was self–centered.

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"He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time."

Hunter S. Thompson

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Perhaps, in the 21st century, Nixon would be regarded as a RINO by members of the Republican Party. Then as now, there were members of each party who despised members of the other party on principle, but Nixon had his share of detractors within his own party as well.

Nevertheless, he knew how to win, both elections and legislative battles, and his knowledge came from having to adapt to changing conditions. As president, he promoted things like environmental protection and affirmative action as much to pre–empt his rivals as anything else.

It seems to me from what I have read that, if Watergate had not interfered, Nixon might have pursued policies in his second term that, in effect, repealed many of the more liberal policies of his first term.

His performance on the foreign stage was filled with contradictions, though, and I haven't a clue what a Nixon unencumbered by Watergate might have done in that arena.

When he sought his second term, after failing to end the Vietnam conflict as promised in the explosive year of 1968, he often spoke of seeking "peace with honor" — an objective he pursued with an apparently contrary expansion of the war to neighboring countries.

Incredibly, he won re–election by seizing the reputation of peacemaker from the Democrats, who fancied themselves the party of peace.

That was the tightrope Nixon walked as a centrist, and that was hard to do then, but it is even more difficult now.

For the most part, Republicans have nominated presidential candidates who were center or right–of–center in their politics since Nixon's day (and even before), but, increasingly, those nominees are expected to pass a right–wing litmus test that only extremists can truly pass.

That is something Republicans are going to have to give up if they hope to continue to be one of the parties in our two–party system.

In the aftermath of the 2012 election, I heard many Republicans bemoaning their performance with minorities and discussing ways to appeal to those groups. Forty years ago, Nixon received more than one–third of the black vote, about six times the share of the black vote that Mitt Romney received two months ago.

Romney, of course, had a black opponent, and Nixon did not. Nevertheless, there are lessons for modern Republicans to learn from Nixon about adjusting to a changing political landscape.

But Nixon was a flawed man, and, thus, it was ironic that he was struck by an almost blinding moment of clarity in the very last moments of his presidency. As he gave his farewell address, he advised the White House staff, "Others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

That was Nixon's story. He had achieved what he set out to achieve, but he was undone by his own hatreds and insecurities.

It was almost Shakespearean. Nixon held what he most desired in the palms of his hands, but it slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor.

The century of Nixon stands as a cautionary tale. It offers guidance in how to cobble together a political coalition, and it offers guidance in how not to lose what you have won.

A century after his birth, Richard Nixon remains a paradox.

The Arkansas Rockefeller

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Tomorrow would have been Winthrop Rockefeller's 100th birthday.

It may seem inappropriate to refer to him — as my headline does — as "the Arkansas Rockefeller" — although that is the title of a book about Rockefeller that was written by a friend of mine, John Ward (the longtime editor of my hometown newspaper and my early mentor), more than 30 years ago.

Rockefeller was born in New York City, as were most of his siblings, but he put down roots in Arkansas.

Most people probably know the Rockefeller name. John D. Rockefeller Sr., Winthrop's grandfather, founded Standard Oil in 1870. Winthrop's father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., took over the family business and fortune and was well known for his philanthropic activities.

John D. Jr. had five sons, including Winthrop, and one daughter. They were high achievers. Winthrop's sister Abby remained mostly out of the public eye, but his brothers were captains of industry and financial and political leaders.

Compared to his sister and brothers, Winthrop may have been seen by many as the black sheep of the family. He attended Yale, but he didn't complete his degree work there. He was given the boot for misbehavior.

Winthrop was decorated for his service in World War II and achieved the rank of colonel, but perhaps he felt a need to make his mark someplace else, someplace far away from his family.

Arkansas may have met all of his requirements. No other Rockefeller (to my knowledge) ever had any influence on life in Arkansas — other than, perhaps, the original John D. and his petroleum business. Anyway, Winthrop moved there in 1953 and established a cattle operation on Petit Jean Mountain in the central part of the state.

He might have chosen to live out his life in relative obscurity (at least as much as anyone named Rockefeller could), but he decided to try to make his mark in Arkansas politics. He began somewhat tentatively, I guess, supporting Republican candidates against longtime incumbent Orval Faubus in 1960 and 1962 (when Arkansas still elected its governor every two years).

He made his first foray as a candidate in 1964 when he challenged Faubus. Rockefeller lost that race, but he had sown the seeds for growth in the Arkansas Republican Party, which was almost nonexistent before Rockefeller moved to the state. The growth of the party in Arkansas is as much his legacy as anyone else's.

And that strikes me as somewhat ironic because Rockefeller and modern Arkansas Republicans don't seem to have much in common. I have observed Arkansas politics from a distance for the last couple of decades, but it seems to me that Arkansas' 21st–century Republicans have far more in common with the state's Democrats of the mid–20th century than with Rockefeller.

Speaking of which ...

Several weeks ago, I came across an article about Rockefeller's first successful campaign for governor of Arkansas in 1966.

The article, written by John Kirk for Arkansas Times, brought back a lot of memories for me. I was a small child in those days, but the memory of those times is still quite vivid.

Kirk observed — and I think most Arkansans who remember those days would agree — that the 1966 election marked an important turning point for Arkansas — and, by extension, the United States and the world. Rockefeller never won an office with greater prestige than governor of Arkansas, but if he hadn't won that election, it might not have been possible, Kirk wrote, for a young man named Bill Clinton to be elected governor a decade later and go on to be elected president.

"Without Rockefeller's 1966 victory there may well have never been a Clinton presidency," wrote Kirk, chairman of the history department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

"At the same time, paradoxically, Rockefeller's victory also paved the way for the emergence of a two–party system in Arkansas and laid the longer–term foundations for the Republican Party to become a force in state politics."

Of the latter, I can truthfully say that I had thought of that myself — that Arkansas became a much more competitive state politically after Rockefeller was elected governor.

That wasn't necessarily good news for the Democrats who had dominated state politics for so long — but it was good news for democrats (lower–case D) and the cause of democracy.

But, frankly, I had never thought of Rockefeller's victory making a Clinton presidency possible. The more I think about it, though, the more I am inclined to think that Kirk might be on to something there.

Rockefeller defeated a man named Justice Jim Johnson, who happened to live a mile or two down the road from my house. I went to school with his twin sons, played with them in the afternoons after school dismissed.

We spent nights at each others' houses. I attended their birthday parties, and they attended mine.

To me, Jim Johnson was a kind and fatherly neighbor, more of a father to me in many ways, really, than my own father. He was the father of my friends and classmates and a great influence on me in my formative years.

I was too young to understand that he was a segregationist, an ardent supporter of the likes of George Wallace, possibly the most notorious Southern politician of that time. He even managed Wallace's 1968 independent presidential campaign in Arkansas.

At the time that Rockefeller was elected, I was sorry that my friend had lost. But I was merely a child at the time, and, in hindsight, I'm inclined to believe it was a good thing that Rockefeller won — for many reasons, not the least of which was Rockefeller's general commitment to improving the quality of life for all Arkansans.

I guess the centennial of Rockefeller's birth is an occasion for a lot of reflecting on his influence in Arkansas. I haven't lived there in awhile, but I have noticed several retrospective articles online about his four years as Arkansas' governor, and it is gratifying to know that he is remembered.

My parents, as I have observed here before, were Democrats, and they were active members of a group called "Democrats for Rockefeller." My mother did a lot of door–to–door canvassing for Rockefeller in '66, even though his opponent was our neighbor.

Rumors circulated at the time that Rockefeller's campaign was bringing in Republican allies from other states to pose as Democrats in order to persuade Arkansas citizens to elect a Republican governor.

Such stories may seem ludicrous today — or, perhaps not, given the adversarial nature of modern American political campaigns — but they seemed plausible then, particularly in the South where it was common knowledge that "outside agitators" had been shipped in to the region to help enforce civil rights and voting rights reforms.

Consequently, many Arkansans were suspicious of anyone claiming to be a Democrat for Rockefeller. "Are you really a Democrat?" my mother was asked countless times, and she always responded the same way: "Yes, I am, and when the Democrats have a candidate I can support, I will vote for him."

Mom and Dad had to keep that promise in 1970, when the Democrats nominated a previously unknown centrist country lawyer named Dale Bumpers. I know it hurt them to vote against Rockefeller. They appreciated all the things he had done — or tried to do — for the state, but Bumpers was a candidate they felt they could support, and they had told many people that they would vote for a Democrat they found acceptable — and their word was their bond.

Bumpers defeated Rockefeller in the general election, and Rockefeller withdrew from the public spotlight. He died of cancer a couple of years later.

His achievements survive him.

Arkansas Times observed recently that, without Rockefeller's support, the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, for which ground was broken 50 years ago last August, "might have taken a much longer time to become reality, if ever."

The article about the Arkansas Arts Center brought back memories of days I had forgotten.

Sometime in the mid–'70s, my mother enrolled my brother and me in summer art classes at the Arkansas Arts Center. We tried all kinds of media that summer. We did some drawing, some painting, some sculpting. The classes met daily during the week for about six weeks. At the end of that time, each student's best work was part of a display at the facility.

It was a fun class. It didn't spark anything like a career in art for my brother or me, but it did enhance our appreciation of art — and we both tend to be rather creative (we really take after our mother in that regard) so maybe we have applied things we learned in that class to our future endeavors.

And that is really what Rockefeller was hoping for, I think. As Leslie Newell Peacock points out in the Arkansas Times article, Rockefeller was approached by a local group from Little Rock to head the effort for the arts center. Rockefeller declined the offer but promised to help find a chairman for the fund–raising drive, insisting that such a facility needed to be "for the whole state of Arkansas."

Mission accomplished.

It really goes without saying that Winthrop Rockefeller left quite a mark on Arkansas — even though his time in office was brief (at least when compared to Faubus or Clinton).

But it's something that is worth remembering on what would have been his 100th birthday.

Reagan Revisionism

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This Sunday will be Super Bowl Sunday, and the upcoming clash between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers will be getting most of the media's attention the closer we get to it.

But this Sunday will also be the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. So far, it hasn't been causing the kind of fuss that Abe Lincoln's 200th birthday produced a couple of years ago. That may be because Reagan has only been dead for a few years. His memory is still somewhat fresh for many Americans.

So it is with me.

I remember Reagan quite well. I was a critic of most of Reagan's policies, as I have written here frequently. I often felt as if I belonged to a minority in those days — and, in fact, I did. Most people liked Reagan when he was president, even if they disagreed with him on issues.

That was something I never really understood at the time because I didn't like him. I thought he was, at heart, an actor, insincere, unfeeling. To be candid, I often thought he was a hypocrite.

Even today, I think I still feel that way — to an extent. But I don't feel that way as intensely as I did. Perhaps I have mellowed.

It is from that perspective, therefore, that I have been reading — with interest — Ryan Cole's article, "Everybody Loves Reagan," in The American Spectator.

"Death, the hindsight of history, a sympathetic public, and a handful of dedicated historians and opportunistic politicians," he writes, "have turned this once divisive and controversial leader into a bipartisan reminder of our better angels."

Cole makes a valid point when he observes that other presidents have been given the same kind of treatment, and it really shouldn't be surprising that this kind of makeover is in the works for Reagan. During his presidency, he often went to great pains to assure certain groups of people that he was really on their side — even while his policies were giving those groups a quick kick in the stomach or a roundhouse to the chops.

Nevertheless, as Cole writes, "The growing consensus on Reagan's greatness ... is warranted. And his apotheosis ... should be welcomed."

And clearly it is. As Cole points out, prominent Democrats, including the president, have been speaking fondly of Reagan's memory in recent years.

The "new, warm and cuddly (and generally non–idelogical) Reagan," he writes, is "a hero and a great president, but the emphasis is on his pragmatism, diplomacy, and generally unconservative behavior. It's increasingly difficult to find the conservative who generated histrionic levels of disgust from Democrats."

But that conservative is still there.

Reagan was more skillful than most when it came to spoken language, and he was no dummy. He knew about code language and how to use it to his advantage.

He could, for example, use an incendiary phrase like "states' rights" in a place like Philadelphia, Miss., where racial hatred and violence made a mockery of the "city of brotherly love" meaning of the name that is found in its native Greek — and get away with it.

Reagan's assertion was still a source of controversy more than a quarter of a century after he made it.

He spoke of the urgency of spending money on defense but rarely, if ever, spoke of spending money on things that improve and enrich lives. In the interest of saving a few dollars, he could play games with school nutrition, suggesting that ketchup was a vegetable. He could ignore the growing AIDS crisis until a friend like Rock Hudson was afflicted with it and died, then he grudgingly approved limited funding for research.

But medical research struggled for years to regain the ground it had lost while Reagan buried his head in the sand.

I always got the feeling that Reagan saw America in monochromatic terms. He spoke of "bold colors, not pale pastels," but that was not in the context of the things in life that government can promote that will lift people up and give beauty and deeper meaning to their existence.

Without that, I always wondered what kind of America Reagan wanted to preserve, and I was never really sure I wanted to be part of it, whatever it was.

It has been more than 20 years since Reagan left the White House, and now we are getting an idea of the kind of America he built. The results have not been anything like what his admirers would have you believe.

Nevertheless, there are some things Barack Obama, who seems increasingly eager to wrap himself in Reagan's banner, can learn from his predecessor.

One is that, no matter what you would like to achieve as president, there are some things that simply must wait for another time. A president must set priorities, and Reagan did that part of the job quite well.

Another is that, as Cole observes, a president must be willing to "compromise in pursuit of his objectives." Reagn did that after a midterm setback. So, too, did Bill Clinton. And they were rewarded with second terms.

But Reagan and Clinton also projected optimistic attitudes, and that goes a long way with voters.

Circumstances may be bad. They were horrific in 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Southerners were worried about what the future held when the Civil War was ending, but Lincoln assured them that no one would be treated maliciously and all would be treated charitably.

Presidents who speak in generous terms, whether they are sincere or not, tend to be successful. Presidents who come across as sour and pessimistic, even if they are telling people the truth, typically do not remain president for long, and that is something that I think Obama needs to work on. As president, he has had a tendency to lecture people when they really needed a pep talk.

He showed signs of getting away from that in his State of the Union speech last week. But he has to do more than talk the talk on a single occasion.

He must walk the walk every day.