Jane Galt over at Asymmetrical Information has an intriguing post regarding Ronald Reagan’s economic legacy. First, Ms. Galt dispels the myth that Reagan’s policies were solely responsible for improving America’s economic malaise of the late 1970’s:

I think it was Grover Norquist, saying that Reagan was great because when he took office, unemployment was 10% and interest rates were sky-high, and when he left office everything was boom-a-riffic.
This is every bit as fine a bit of data mining as Democrats who make similar claims for Clinton — the economy sucked when he took office, and was booming when he left. When Clinton took office, the economy was already recovering from a recession; when he left, it was sliding into another one. That’s luck, not talent. (Rubinomics buffs, peace out. I’ll deal with you later.)
Similarly, high unemployment and interest rates under Reagan were not because Democrats Had Been Driving the Economy Into the Ground Until the Grownups Took Over. High inflation was the result of a dozen years of bad fiscal and monetary policy under two Republicans — Nixon and Ford — and two Democrats — Johnson and Carter — that was brought under control only when Paul Volcker, the Carter-appointed head of the Federal Reserve, jammed interest rates up to national-heart-attack levels and left them there until inflationary expectations were well and truly tamed. Reagan had nothing to do with unemployment and interest rates falling; that was the inevitable result of a drastic monetary tightening finally working its way through the economy.

Ms. Galt also debunks the supply-side economics myth that budget deficits have no effect on interest rates:

While we’re here, can we put to bed the oft-quoted supply side factoid that you can tell budget deficits have no effect on interest rates because interest rates fell under Reagan, even though the budget deficit expanded? Interest rates fell because once inflationary expectations were overcome, the natural interest rate for the US was well below the 20% it reached at the start of Reagan’s presidency. But they might have fallen even farther without the budget deficits.
Then again, they might not. As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence that budget deficits have a significant effect on interest rates. One can theorize that it should, and indeed the theories make a great deal of sense. It’s just that you can’t find any actual good data to support them in the Real World. This is one of the major sources of my skepticism about Rubinomics.

Ms. Galt goes on to opine that the single greatest economic achievement of Reagan’s presidency was tax reform, and not so much marginal rate reduction as the simplification of the tax code that was enacted in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Then, Ms. Galt views Reagan’s overall legacy:

Oh, it was not a perfect legacy. It wasn’t as sweeping as some people, like, say, me, would have liked; there were a lot of silly deductions left in, like the home mortgage interest deduction. And the Clinton administration and their accomplices in congress did their best to undo his good work, by introducing thousands of new loopholes. Though, recognizing that loopholes are damaging to the economy and the cohesion of civil society, they did at least try to mitigate the damage: they stopped calling them “loopholes” and instead referred to them as “targeted tax cuts”.
By forcing a showdown with the air traffic controllers union, Reagan helped forestall the sorts of public employee quiet riots common in Europe whenever the government suggests that maybe eight weeks vacation and retirement at 55 are quite generous enough already.
He advanced the deregulation begun under Carter, which wasn’t always good for the regulated companies, but was great for those of us who remember the rotary telephones and extortionate long distance rates of Ma Bell.
He helped bring down the Soviet Union. Oh, I agree with liberals that he didn’t do it singlehandedly, but hey, Communism and Soviet imperialism really sucked, so isn’t advancing its demise by fifteen years a pretty damn worthy accomplishment? Plus he had the guts to tell Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall, which was more than any of his predecessors had done.
And he pulled us out of the doldrums of the 1970’s. He got the country to stop taking Europe’s word for it that we were a bunch of rubes and know-nothings, fit for nothing except Continental security guard.
Plus, he made a bunch of movies. All in all, I think it likely that he’ll be remembered alongside Roosevelt as one of the two greatest president’s in the twentieth century. And they’ll be remembered that way not because of the events they presided over, but because they recognized an evil empire when they saw it, and they led the country into battle against it.
We should all be able to claim so much.

Amen!

Franklin L. Lavin is the U.S. ambassador to Singapore and previously served on President Reagan’s White House and National Security Council staff. In this Wall Street Journal ($) Manager’s Journal column, Ambassador Lavin provides an interesting insight about President Reagan’s leadership skills and tells an even better story about Reagan. First, Mr. Lavin outlines the basis of Reagan’s leadership skills:

Don’t be afraid of friction. Friction, or even unpopularity, can be the price for trying to change the status quo. If elected leaders view their job as simply finding the center of gravity on every issue, they might retain their popularity — but all they will have done is encapsulate public opinion, not lead it. On the other hand, if political leaders want to shape a new consensus, they have to risk alienating those who support the current status quo. Reagan knew that his job was not to make everybody like him, but to help move America in the right direction.
Focus on a few key goals. For Reagan, his goals were to confront Soviet expansionism, reduce the tax burden and place limits on the size of government. He proved to be highly successful on the first two goals, and only abstractly successful on the latter. The federal government expanded substantially during Reagan’s presidency, even if we allow for military growth. But let’s not confuse an inability to implement goals with the desirability of the goals. Reagan did change the debate about the nature of government and the open-ended expansion of the welfare state.
Don’t confuse expertise with leadership. As a political leader, Reagan was masterful. He combined a clear sense of purpose with natural stagecraft and the charming occasional idiosyncrasy. He also understood that as president, you didn’t need to be an expert, you could hire experts, and he did.
Be upbeat. People want to believe in their leadership, believe in their country, and believe in themselves. A president has to paint a picture of a better country and come up with the program to help get us there. There is an old saying in politics. “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”

And then Ambassador Lavin passes along a story that provides a glimpse of Reagan’s humanity that helped make him a great leader:

Reagan was in Alabama once and visited a special school for handicapped kids. He offered a few minutes of remarks and took questions from the kids. It was a terrific — dare I say Reaganesque — moment, because simply by spending time with these kids he was endowing their experience with a bit more worth.
Then came a moment of terror. One of the kids had a severe speech impediment. He asked his question, and no one in the room could understand it. The president asked him if he could repeat it and again no one could understand what was said. The staff froze. The teachers froze. What was to have been an upbeat day was turning into a disaster. Instead of allowing these wonderful kids to forget about their handicap, this kid was going to be reminded of it.
Reagan to the rescue:
“I’m sorry,” he said with a smile, “but you know I’ve got this hearing aid in my ear. Every once in a while the darn thing just conks out on me. And it’s just gone dead. Sorry to put you through this again, but I’m going to ask one of my staff people to go over to you so you can tell him directly what your question is. Then he can pass the question back to me.”
Rather than make the kid feel small, Reagan brought his own handicap to the forefront.

National Review Online has the best group of articles on the late former President.
The Wall Street Journal ($) also has an excellent overview of President Reagan’s life and career, and op-eds by former Reagan speechwriters Peggy Noonan and Peter Robinson that provide excellent insights into this American hero.
Brian Leiter has a good summary of contrary views on the Reagan Presidency.
And Jack Balkin has this balanced piece on President Reagan’s legacy.

Maureen Dowd is a New York Times columnist who consistently writes below her considerable talent level. In this article, Catherine Seipp, a Los Angeles-based writer, dissects Ms. Dowd’s columns from the month of May, and it is not a pretty. I hope someone passes it along to Ms. Dowd’s editor. Hat tip to Pejmanesque for the link to this clever piece.

The always entertaining Gordon Prather has a theory.

One of the most insightful social commentators of our time, Victor Davis Hanson, posts his weekly article on NRO in which he opines on the real problem in the prosecution of the war against the radical Islamic fascists:

Our Real Dilemma. We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.
We are becoming a crazed culture of cheap criticism and pious moralizing, and in our self-absorption may well lose what we inherited from a better generation. Our groaning and hissing elite indulges itself, while better but forgotten folks risk their lives on our behalf in pretty horrible places.

As usual, Professor Hanson closes by placing the current troubles in Iraq into perspective:

Historic forces of the ages are in play. If we can just keep our sanity a while longer, accept our undeniable mistakes, learn from them, and press on, Iraq really will emerge as the constitutional antithesis of Saddam Hussein, and that will be a good and noble thing ? impossible without America and its most amazing military.

Read the entire article.

British historian Paul Johnson (author of “Modern Times,” “History of the Jews,” “History of Christianity,” “A History of the American People,” and his more recent “Art, A New History,” among others) is one of my favorites. In this Wall Street Journal op-ed from several days ago, Mr. Johnson makes the following poignant point about the planning and implementation of the D-Day invasion during World War II, and relates it to the Allies’ current situation in Iraq:

The history of D-Day, and the fortnight that followed, showed the value of meticulous preparations, rehearsals, elaborate testing of every kind of equipment, and the study of logistics. Having secured the bridgehead, the Allied buildup was so rapid that, within a month, the Germans had palpably lost the battle in the West and with it the war. But that did not mean an early Nazi capitulation. Granted the Allied war aim of unconditional surrender, Hitler would clearly fight on to the end, and that meant we had to destroy his large-scale fighting capacity by breaking up all major units and occupying territory. But how, exactly? Montgomery was all for the rapid thrust by armored divisions deep into Germany, backed by overwhelming air-power. “Berlin by Christmas” was one phrase used. This was a fighting soldier’s strategy and one which the Germans, in a similar situation, would certainly have used. Indeed, to some extent it was used by Gen. Patton and his armor. But it was risky. The faster the spearhead moved, the more extended its lines of communication became and the more likely it was that the Germans would be able to mount a devastating lateral attack which might sever the advanced armored units from their tail.
In the end, Eisenhower decided it was too risky and overruled Montgomery’s enthusiasm. Instead, a “broad front” strategy was adopted, the Allies advancing slowly, steady and always as a continuous mass, forward units never out of touch with their companions to left or right. This virtually ruled out the possibility of German counterattack breaking right through the front and nipping off a spearhead. It was the safe approach, and typical of Eisenhower’s minimum-risk attitude to warfare.
But of course such an approach involved penalties. It allowed the Germans to keep their line, to regroup and reinforce, and to maintain morale. Not until the very last weeks of the war did their front collapse, and individual units begin to surrender freely. Moreover, the political consequences were enormous. Instead of the war ending in autumn or early winter 1944, it lasted until the end of April 1945. Instead of the U.S. and Britain occupying Berlin and most of central Europe, it left these spoils to the Russians. The broad-front policy set the stage for 40 years of Cold War. Indeed, had it not been for the firmness of President Truman in reversing Roosevelt’s policy of appeasing Stalin, it is quite possible that Western Europe too might have fallen victim to communism, and that the frontiers of Stalin’s empire would only have ended at the English Channel.
These reflections of D-Day and its aftermath remind us that military decisions can never be entirely separated from their political consequences. Geopolitics is like a game of chess: You have to think a dozen moves ahead. This is as true today as in 1944-45. When President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to destroy Saddam Hussein’s military power, they took a risk that was abundantly justified both geopolitically and morally. But they paid insufficient attention to the possible political consequences.
Unlike Montgomery in 1944, who never underestimated the German genius for counterattack, and made provision against it, the allies this time did not study and prepare for the peculiar Arab genius for counterattack, which is to carry out prolonged and vicious guerilla warfare, completely disregarding human life, including their own. Moreover they did not study and prepare for the difficulties of meeting this form of counterattack against the political background of a free society at home, reacting nightly to what it sees on TV, and reading highly critical reports from the front written by journalists who have their own opinions and agendas and feel under no obligation to pursue the war (and peace) aims of the allied commanders. Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are currently suffering from their lack of provision and foresight.
Given patience and determination, all will be well in time: Democracy and the rule of law will grow in the Middle East, and the roots of terrorism will be destroyed. But we are learning, once again, that the lessons history has to teach are inexhaustible and that statesmen should never plunge into the future, as we did in Iraq, without first examining what guidance the past could supply.

Here is the NY Times obituary on Archibald Cox, the Harvard Law School constitutional law professor who became famous as the special prosecutor who investigated the Watergate scandal during the second Administration of the late president, Richard M. Nixon. President Nixon’s firing of Mr. Cox during a crucial phase of the investigation into the Watergate scandal eventually was a galvanizing event that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation of the presidency and the granting of a pardon to Nixon by his successor, Gerald R. Ford.
Mr. Cox was a solicitor general of the United States in the Kennedy Administration and a Harvard Law School professor when he took over the the Watergate scandal investigation in May, 1973. He was appointed to that position largely because of his friendship with his former student, then Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson. The appointment of Mr. Cox came on the heels of President Nixon’s announcement in late April 1973 of the forced departure from his administration of four top- level appointees after they were swept up in the Watergate affair. The scandals had begun with the June 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate office complex during 1972 Presidential election campaign between Nixon and Democratic nominee, George McGovern.
As the special prosecutor, Mr. Cox soon wound up in a constitutional confrontation with the White House. After the discovery of secret tape recordings of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations, Mr. Cox subpoenaed those tapes and, when the White House refused to comply with the subpoena under principles of Executive Privilege, Mr. Cox sought to enforce the subpoena through the federal courts and won.
When Nixon resisted the federal courts’ orders requiring him to turnover the tapes and Mr. Cox persisted, Nixon ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Mr. Cox, but Richardson refused as a matter of principle. As a result, Richardson resigned and Nixon then ordered the deputy attorney general, William D. Ruckelshaus, to fire Mr. Cox. Mr. Ruckelshaus refused and was then fired. Finally, Robert H. Bork, the solicitor general, finally complied with Nixon’s order to fire Mr. Cox. Many powerful people in the U.S. government never forgave Mr. Bork’s compliance with Nixon’s order to fire Mr. Cox, and that probably had more to do with Mr. Bork’s eventual rejection years later as a Supreme Court Justice than any of his more relevant views on application of constitutional law.
These extraordinary events were eventually dubbed “the Saturday Night Massacre” of the Watergate scandal, and the resulting public outcry against Nixon was the beginning of the end of his Presidency. Nixon eventually appointed famed Houston trial attorney Leon Jaworski to replace Mr. Cox as special prosecutor, and Mr. Jaworski continued Mr. Cox’s relentless pursuit of the tapes. Nixon eventually turned them over to Mr. Jaworski, their contents proved Nixon’s involvement in the cover up of the Watergate burglary, and Nixon resigned the Presidency in disgrace shortly thereafter.
After his involement in the Watergate affair, Mr. Cox returned to Harvard, where he taught constitutional law and became a professor emeritus in 1984. Rest in peace, Professor Cox.

The Wall Street Journal ($) is doing a particularly good job in reporting on the polling pertaining to the upcoming Presidential election. This article reports on the WSJ’s latest data and analysis. The entire article is highly informative reading, and the following summarizes the WSJ’s analysis:

George W. Bush and John Kerry may be speaking to all of America, but their campaign advisers are focusing on a narrower slice of the population and targeting the candidates’ messages to voters in states that were decided by a narrow margin in 2000. These battleground states may tip the outcome again in November.
To take the pulse of voters in many of these key states, Zogby Interactive, a division of polling and research firm Zogby International, is conducting online polls twice a month through Election Day in 16 states selected by WSJ.com. Participation in the polls is controlled and the results are weighted, Zogby says, to make them representative of what a poll of the overall U.S. voting population would find.
Results of the first poll, conducted May 18-23, show Mr. Kerry leading in 12 of the 16 states in this poll, including five states that Mr. Bush won in 2000. Mr. Bush leads in four states, including one — Iowa — that voted Democratic in 2000. The 12 states in which Mr. Kerry leads have a total of 148 votes in the Electoral College, while the four in which Mr. Bush is ahead have 29 electoral votes.
Mr. Bush won eight of these 16 battlegrounds in his 2000 victory, but if the election were to be held tomorrow, it looks unlikely that the president would fare as well. But more than half of the states that Mr. Kerry leads fall within the polls’ margins of error. All of the states that Mr. Bush leads are within the margins of error.

In short, although the election is five months away, Mr. Bush is in trouble. However, Mr. Kerry is not a strong candidate and is having difficulty capitalizing on Mr. Bush’s problems. Looks like a close race is shaping up. Stay tuned.

From this Dallas Morning News Editorial (free online subscription required):

The GOP Challenge: Can Republicans govern Texas?

With school finance blowing up on the GOP leadership in Austin, you have to wonder if Texas Republicans will learn from history.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, conservative Democrats like Govs. Allan Shivers and John Connally commonly fought with liberal party members. The feuds became so prominent that the disputes left room for the state’s infant GOP to quietly but steadily develop. By the start of the 1980s, the Texas GOP was on the rise while the Texas Democratic Party was on its decline.
We point this out because Texas Republicans now are at their own crossroads. They are skirmishing like Democrats of old.
The Legislature’s failure to come up with a fix for school funding wasn’t because Republicans and Democrats were brawling, although there were conflicts between the parties. The breakdown came because Republicans couldn’t agree with Republicans. The GOP controls the governorship, the House and the Senate. And that’s where the feuding has mostly taken place over the last month.
Now, some of the fight is about honest disagreements. But the real quarrel is about whether the Legislature should raise business taxes to put more money into Texas schools. Gov. Rick Perry hasn’t wanted to do that, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst fortunately is willing, and House Speaker Tom Craddick is somewhere in between.
Republicans need to recognize the state needs a new pool of funds to improve schools. And they need to come to that reality fast.
Since 2002, when Republicans took over all parts of the state’s government for the first time in 100-plus years, the Legislature has broken down into bitter fights over the state’s budget, congressional redistricting and, now, school funding. If Texas Republicans don’t fix this situation, then Texans will have a right to wonder if the GOP knows how to govern.
Republicans may want to check in with the state’s Democratic elders on this point, too. They know what it’s like for voters to take away their power.

In the meantime, I will not hold my breath waiting for the Texas legislature to begin considering such innovative approaches as are reviewed in this prior post.