I am one of the fortunate Americans who has had the privilege of viewing the movie “Reagan.” If you have not seen it, gather your family and friends and go see this movie. It is a truly great movie and does President Reagan justice in portraying him as one of our truly great presidents.
The media and movie critics have panned the movie, but moviegoers have loved it. In fact, “Reagan” has recorded the greatest disparity between critics’ positive ranking (18%) and the public’s positive (98%) reaction.
As I left the theater I was flooded with a variety of emotions. First, I felt deep affection and admiration for Mr. Reagan, clearly a fundamentally decent man who loved his country and was very aware of how fortunate he and his fellow countrymen were to be Americans. I was 33 years old when Ronald Reagan was elected and I was frankly astounded at the positive change he wrought both internationally and domestically. Quite literally, he led America and the West to victory in the Cold War.
The second emotion I felt surging within me was nostalgia and admiration for the basic decency and genuine patriotism of the man himself.
As I watched the movie, I was reminded of a remarkable little book I read many years ago, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life by Peter Robinson, published in 2003. Robinson is the host of Uncommon Knowledge, an interview program sponsored by Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Robinson was hired as a chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush and then became a speechwriter for President Reagan. Robinson’s chief claim to fame is that he wrote the speech President Reagan delivered at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987. That speech contained the now famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Robinson relates the story of how Secretary of State James Baker and others tried to get that line excised from the speech up to, and including, when Reagan was in the limo on the way to the speech.
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at The Christian Post)
