June 06, 2004

Steyn on Ronald Reagan, dead at 93. "�The Great Communicator� was effective because what he was communicating was self-evident to all but our dessicated elites: �We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around.� And at the end of a grim, grey decade - Vietnam, Watergate, energy crises, Iranian hostages � Americans decided they wanted a President who looked like the nation, not like its failed government. Thanks to his clarity, around the world, governments that had nations have been replaced by nations that have governments. Most of the Warsaw Pact countries are now members of Nato, with free markets and freely elected parliaments."

One man who understood was Yakob Ravin, a Ukrainian �migr� who in the summer of 1997 happened to be strolling with his grandson in Armand Hammer Park near Reagan�s California home. They happened to see the former President, out taking a walk. Mr Ravin went over and asked if he could take a picture of the boy and the President. When they got back home to Ohio, it appeared in the local newspaper, The Toledo Blade. Ronald Reagan was three years into the decade-long twilight of his illness, and unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But Mr Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. �Mr President,� he said, �thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire.�

And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. �Yes,� said the old man, �that is my job.�

Yes, that was his job.

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