Michael Reagan: Hollywood should stop lying about my dad

Tim Graham has a short piece at Newsbusters on Michael Reagan's (I think unquestionably correct) assertion that Hollywood, "want[s] people to remember [Ronald Reagan] the way [they] want to portray him, not the way he really was."

Concerns like this are one of the main reasons this blog was started.  As with so many other aspects of American history, those of us who remember the Reagan years must make it our business to pass down our perspective on those years to the next generation.  Granted, we may be wrong at times, but are no more susceptible to hero worship or overlooking Reagan's faults than those who write the textbooks are prone to accentuate his faults and celebrate their own chosen heroes (e.g., Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama).  In the end, we must trust that future generations will be able to weigh the evidence and draw their own faithful conclusions.  To do that, however, they must hear from those of us who do not walk in the halls Hollywood, academia, or political power.

Michael Douglas to portray Reagan in "Reykjavik"

Filming for the Cold War movie will begin in March aims for a 2014 release, focuses on the Reykjavik Summit in 1986 between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev (played by Christoph Waltz) that, while unsuccessful, ended up establishing a connection between the two world leaders that would ultimately result in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty the following year... The Times of India

Who else thinks Jon Voight or Clint Eastwood would've been a MUCH better choice?

Building the Infrastructure of Democracy: Reagan's Legacy 30 Years Later

John Sullivan of the Center for International Private Enterprise has a nice homage to President Reagan's Westminster Address and it's role in fostering the expansion of democracy around the world.

During the last 30 years, totalitarian regimes have fallen and democracies have risen in all corners of the world, proving that people do strive, inexorably and eventually, toward freedom. At the end of his speech at Westminster, President Reagan harkened back to Sir Winston Churchill, who so masterfully led the British people through the Blitz, "So let us ask ourselves, 'What kind of people do we think we are?' And let us answer, 'Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.'" This is a generational task, one (as the president pointed out) that will not be accomplished in the span of a single generation. But it is a legacy not only for President Ronald Reagan but for all of those involved. It is a legacy well worth pursuing.

Ronald Reagan: The President and the Constitution

This is a 1991 interview with Ronald Reagan, is essentially the former president offering an explanation and defense of his administration.  It provides the other side of the argument to the now-frequent Leftist charge that "Reagan-increased-government-spending-and-debt-so-he-wasn't-really-a-fiscal-conservative."

Ronald Reagan: The President and the Constitution from Claire Griffin on Vimeo.

Lech Walesa Unveils Reagan Statue in Warsaw: “Without Reagan There Would Be No Poland”

The bronze statue of Reagan has been installed not far from the American Embassy, on Ujazdowskie Avenue, one of the capital’s most picturesque thoroughfares.  h/t Gateway Pundit

5 Myths about Ronald Reagan

Reagan biographer Edmund Morris wrote an interesting Op-Ed for the Washington Post in 2011 entitled 5 Myths about Ronald Reagan.  

Best line of the article:  In response to the charge that Reagan was an "amiable dunce,"

Yeah, right, Clark Clifford. Ronald Reagan only performed successfully in six different careers: radio sportscaster, movie actor, trade union president, corporate spokesman, two-term governor and two-term president of the United States. Lucky for him he wasn't hampered by Jimmy Carter's intelligence!