Well...he's dead.
Trapper John wisely counsels us to be wary of giving fodder to the winger who are just dying for the opportunity to see us gloat about Reagan's death, and to spew venom at him and his legacy. I have no interest today in attacking Reagan's legacy; in fact, I wish to praise him for his prescience in recognizing that Mikhail Gorbachev was a dramatically different man than the line of tired appratchniks he succeeded. Reagan recognized that this was a man that he could bargain with, a man who wanted to make the world a safer place, and place less vulnerable to a nuclear war that would destroy all life as we know it. In short, Reagan looked into Gorbachev's soul, and knew this was a man the U.S. could and should trust.
But Reagan's greatest achievement--his work with Gorbachev, including arms reduction treaties and the resulting lowering of tensions between the superpowers, which allowed Gorbachev to begin the reforms that led the Soviets to relinquish control over Eastern Europe and paved the way for Yeltsin's final destruction of the Soviet system--was pursued against the advice of some of the most hawkish Republicans in his administration and in Congress. So tonight, as we live in a world where the danger of nuclear war is much lower than it was in 1985, when Reagan and Gorbachev first met, let us praise Reagan for ignoring the advice of those who said bargaining with Gorbachev would endanger the safety of the free world, especially then-Defense Department official Richard Perle and then-Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney.