Word: reaganized
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When his presidency was just five hours old, on Inauguration Day, 1981, Ronald Reagan took a respite from the celebration and the constant bulletins about the hostages en route home from Tehran by joking with reporters, "It's been a very wonderful day. I guess now I can go back to California...
...quip was a typical Reagan play on his ostensible disdain for Washington and for the traditional politician's obsession with power. In a profoundly personal way, Friday's Inaugural will be an even more wonderful day for the nation's oldest President. Eight years ago, many skeptics predicted that he would have to go West for good after one failed term. Instead, he heads home on his own schedule, with a strong sense that he has done what he came to do. Despite the minefield awaiting his successor, Reagan believes, as he grandly put it the other day, "A revolution...
...That Reagan leaves Washington and the nation very different places from those he found is beyond dispute. How much of his personal triumph translates into durable accomplishment is far more debatable. But those doubts will be invisible as Reagan and George Bush ride to the Capitol together. For Reagan, the Inaugural puts the final adornment on the sash proclaiming him the era's most successful President, if only in political terms...
Though historians will give him a rough time because of the impact of some of his policies, even the toughest appraisals will have to recognize successes that seemed impossible eight years ago. Reagan's four immediate predecessors presided over a frightening decline in presidential authority. Neither Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford nor Jimmy Carter could manage two full terms. Their serial failures left the presidency bordering on decrepitude. That an elderly celluloid cowboy from California unencumbered by heavy intellect, workaholism or Washington experience might halt that decline was inconceivable to the Eastern smart set. Yet Reagan not only arrested...
That feeling of serenity, though diluted by a variety of concerns, is part of the foundation of Reagan's political trifecta: his re-election in 1984, his personal recovery from the trough of the Iran-contra scandal and his final vindication at the polls last November. Not since the Roosevelt-Truman era has either party won three consecutive presidential elections. Not even the popular Eisenhower had the pleasure of escorting his designated heir to the Capitol...