Thank you, Burt, for mentioning what had to be Ronald Reagan’s worst act – shutting down all the mental health facilities. Growing up in SoCal in the 60′s and 70′s, I could count on my digits the number of homeless people I saw on the streets. Suddenly the city was deluged with the mentally ill, wandering schizophrenics cast out with nowhere to go. There have beens spikes and drops in their numbers, but we have never recovered. They are all over our cities and it is a disgrace to our country that we don’t take care of the one group of people who are truly incapable of caring for themselves. And our cities are more dangerous for everyone as a result. It is truly sad, often frightening, always depressing and worst of all, cruel. Reagan certainly deserves credit and praise for his many accomplishments, but the Reagan revolution was not in many respects America’s finest hour. John McCain is no Reagan, neither is Mitt Romney, neither is Rudy Guiliani nor Fred Thompson for that matter. And they shouldn’t be… this isn’t 1980! But I suspect Ronald Reagan himself miraculously transported into the present as a presidential candidate wouldn’t be “Ronald Reagan” either in these revisionists’ eyes.
