Obama makes nice with Nancy Reagan
President Obama kissed and made up with Nancy Reagan today at a White House event to create a commission to celebrate the centennial of her husband Ronald's birth.
The 11-person panel will plan and carry out activities to mark the 100th anniversary, in 2011, of the late president's birth -- a commemoration that could include a postage stamp, a $1 coin, or a joint session of Congress.
Though of the opposite party and of different views, Obama has paid homage to Reagan, calling him a transformational figure in American politics that some fellow Democratic presidents were not.
"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," he said in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal in January 2008.
And today, Obama said, "President Reagan understood that while there are often strong disagreements between parties and political adversaries -- disagreements that can be a source of conflict and bitterness -- it is important to keep in mind all that we share....President Reagan helped as much as any President to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics -- that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day."
Despite those laudatory words, he had some making up to do with the former first lady.
During his first press conference as president, Obama was asked whether he had spoken to former presidents for advice. All the one who were living, he replied, adding strangely, “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances,” presumably a reference to Nancy Reagan consulting an astrologer about Ronald Reagan's schedule.
He called to apologize, but Nancy Reagan also felt snubbed, she told Vanity Fair magazine in the July issue, that she wasn't invited to the March event where Obama overturned Bush administration limits on federal funding for stem cell research -- a cause of hers.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today, "We certainly meant no slight whatsoever."
Any hard feelings were absent today.
"I want to thank our special guest here today, Nancy Reagan, our former first lady, who redefined that role in her time at the White House -- and who has, in the many years since, taken on a new role, as an advocate on behalf of treatments that hold the promise of improving and saving lives," Obama said. "And I should just add, she has been extraordinarily gracious to both me and Michelle during our transition here and I'm thankful for that.
"There are few who are not moved by the love that Ms. Reagan felt for her husband -- and fewer still who are not inspired by how this love led her to take up the twin causes of stem cell research and Alzheimer's research. In saying a long goodbye, Nancy Reagan became a voice on behalf of millions of families experiencing the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer's disease."
When Obama escorted Nancy Reagan into the Diplomatic Reception Room, she walked using a cane in her right hand, while her left hand was in the crook of the president's arm, where it stayed the entire time he spoke, according to the press pool report.
When he escorted her out, she again had her hand in the crook of his elbow. The president leaned down, and said, "Michelle....She just thinks the world of you."
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Yeah! Mrs. Reagan got some respect from the current occupants of the WH. That showed class. Hats off to you Pres. Obama.
Terrific story. We do have, in deed, a great president.
Our president is a cool dude!
As an 80 year old I find great joy in his demeanor, his brilliance and his ability to be the leveling agent for our time. What an inspiration; as was Ronald Reagan.
Just say no?
I did not agree with President Reagan's policies, but I am glad President Obama is being so gracious with Nancy Reagan.
All of you ideologues on both sides.... PLEASE leave this one alone. Just let there be grace and forgiveness.
I am glad that Pres. Obama invited former 1st lady Nancy Reagan to the White House to attend event to honored her deceased husband, Pres. Reagan. Maybe this will make up for not inviting her to attending signing of the funding for Stem Cell Research Bill, a cause of hers for many years.
Ronald Reagan certainly was transformational. He transformed Central America into a blood-soaked hell for poor indigenous peoples of that region. He transformed the US to an everlasting debtor nation. He transformed a great industrial/manufacturing economy to an economy of money changers--Sorry, he only STARTED that process. He transformed Jimmy Carter's America of a low drug-usage society to a crack-and-meth-and-ectasy ridden dog-eat-dog society.
But then, Lucifer was also a transformational figure.
Hmmm., the Reagans. The most overrated, incapable, arrogant polticians to ever exist- except perhaps for the Bush dynasty...a medicore, senile president elevated in popularity by a party that has little else to offer-
Reagan was a failure as a President
You morons, Reagan was the greatest modern President.
Obama f-ing hates Reagan, that should say something.
I am amazed and very disappointed that Nancy would stoop this low.
Reagan made criminal activity in the Executive branch, subverting the Constitution, and lying to Congress and Independent Prosecuters acceptable behavior. The Bushies owe much of their success in destroying our democracy to him. That doesn't mean the woman that Ronnie cheated on his first wife with shouldn't be treated nicely by That One.
What a sad day for America. A man who led the US down the path of destruction, whose ideas proved to be nothing more than brainless, half-baked garbgage, and the manipulated baffoon of the rich who supported him financially after his miserable lackluster career as an actor dried up and then used him like a tool to push an anti american agenda of destruction.
He should be written out of US history as a fool. The biggest mistake the voters of this country ever made. A monument to ignorance.
Reaganomics was the beginning of the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very privleged few at the top, the beginning of Anti-American Party of the anitichrist (GOP) undermining the United States by attacking the economic and financial structure of our system of government, transferring manufacturing overseas and destroying forever the job base of our country. Billions stolen from pension accounts and social security to finance corporate takeovers and to pay for the massive government deficits. The middle class will never recover.
And it worked; the US will never be the same, for sure.
During the last 30 years, the workers have fallen behing in their ability to live the American Dream to the point, now, that it has disappeared for all but a few. Workers haven't receive an increase in wages since 1980 adjusted for inflation.
We have been had by a man who lived his life on the kindness of strangers, very rich ones that used the fool like a monkey held by the organ grinder.
basementfrog
Wow, you're ignorance about Reagan, history, and everything else is appalling. The transfer of wealth you speak of is nothing compared to what will happen to the middle class once we begin to have to pay back Obama's debts.
With his meeting with nancy obama had wrapped again a lot of indipendents. Republicans your walk through the desert is getting longer each day!
Reagan was the greatest president that ever lived.