Reagan praised by Newport-Mesa representatives

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT-MESA -- Ronald Reagan was “one of America’s greatest

presidents,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said Tuesday

during an eight-minute speech on the floor of the House of

Representatives.

Rohrabacher, whose 45th Congressional District includes Costa Mesa,

wasn’t the only one saluting Reagan on his 90th birthday. Reagan joins

John Adams and Herbert Hoover as the only presidents to live to that ripe

age.

In a similar tribute, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach)

introduced a resolution recognizing the occasion.

In it, he called Reagan “instrumental in extending freedom and

democracy around the globe and uniting a world divided by the Cold War”

and said the former president’s “eloquence united Americans in times of

triumph and tragedy.”

A busy Cox could not be reached for comment, however.

Both congressmen spent their early years involved in national politics

in the Reagan White House of the 1980s. Before his election to Congress

in 1988, Rohrabacher served for seven years as one of Reagan’s chief

speech writers.

The congressman was always impressed with Reagan’s leadership skills,

he said Tuesday.

“Ronald Reagan was a real human being,” Rohrabacher said. “He

understood people. He knew how to inspire them.”

During his two terms in the White House, after handily defeating Jimmy

Carter in 1980, the former actor developed his reputation as “The Great

Communicator.” Rohrabacher said Reagan also broke the back of the Soviet

Union by building a strong military and laid the groundwork for the

economic boom of the 1990s with tax cuts.

Critics of the former president have said Reagan ran up the national

debt with the increases in defense spending and that “Reaganomics” -- his

economic program that relied on the “trickle down” theory -- further

increased the wealth gap between the rich and poor.

But Tuesday was a day for celebration -- of a man who hasn’t been seen

in public since disclosing, in 1994, that he has Alzheimer’s disease.

“As time goes by,” Rohrabacher said, “it becomes clear that President

Reagan was not only a great president but one of our greatest -- right up

there with FDR, Lincoln and maybe George Washington.”