Ronald Reagan: A rose-tinted president

"What is beyond doubt is that Mr Reagan made America feel good about itself again. He was, to quote Mr Wills again, "the first truly cheerful conservative". He gave American conservatism a humanity and hope that it never had in the Goldwater or Nixon eras, but which endures today because of him, to the frustration of many more ideological conservatives. Unlike them, Mr Reagan was a congenital optimist, "hardwired for courtesy", as his former speechwriter Peggy Noonan puts it.
Mr Reagan had a rose-tinted view of America's past and America's future alike. He elided things he saw in the movies with reality. At times he could seem oblivious to the facts; when he gave evidence on Iran-Contra in 1990 he used the phrases "I don't recall" or "I don't remember" a total of 130 times. He was the bane of biographers, one of whom, Edmund Morris, actually felt himself driven to produce a part-fictionalised account in order to make the former president more understandable.
But he had an accord with the American people, who warmed to his vision of themselves as a nation of optimistic individualists, blessed by God and by destiny, a vision that predated and outlives him, but on which he left a deep imprint. That is why, though Mr Reagan was often mocked abroad, at home he has already become something of a cult, for very ideological reasons. In this as in other things, what made America feel good about itself makes others deeply alarmed. That also continues after Mr Reagan has gone."