Show Foots Sunday June 5 1988 LOOKING BACK A final take on the presidency of Ronald Reagan is just seven months away for the star-spangl- ed ex-act- or And while he might not win any Oscars for his eight years as this country’s leading man he’s nevertheless a hot topic for critics Political ones that is Local critics — the Siskels and Eberts of political science — agree it’s difficult to give Reagan an overall grade for his performance as the nation’s chief executive They said he’s earned both thumbs up and thumbs down on various fronts and for his two vastly different administrations from 1980-8- 4 and 1984-8- 8 Failure in dealing with the national debt may not have earned him passing grades but successes such as sculpting an economic turnaround have helped kick his grade point average upward University of Utah professor JD Williams credits Reagan with a virtual “economic miracle” in lowering inflation and interest rates He said Reagan's economic policies “did three dramatic things in regard to where we were in the Carter administration” “We have dropped from 125 percent inflation under Jimmy Carter to 3 percent with Ronald Reagan — an economic miracle We have dropped the prime rate of interest from 20 percent under Jimmy Carter to 9 percent And thirdly we have dropped unemployment from about 7 percent when Reagan first came in office to an extraordinary 56 percent" Williams said That's high praise But no one could accuse Williams of Reagan boostensm “There is no question in my Obituaries Classifieds Standard-Examine- r mind that this president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors and should have been indicted by the House of Representatives and removed by the Senate” said Williams who’s been riding Reagan’s impeachment trail for three years For one thing he said Reagan “has been as warlike a president as I can remember in my 62 Stories by Wendy Ogata President gets high marks for turning economy around and cutting nuclear arsenal but he fails on foreign policy staffs ethical improprieties £ ? Drawing by Larry Stephens No politician equal in popularity power If newspapers on Nov 5 1980 overused the phrase “conservative tide” in reporting the outcome of US elections forgive years” “We’re talking here about a regular use of military force to accomplish the goals of foreign policy I am talking about Grenada I am talking about the bombing them They were justified It was a tsunami a deluge an elephantine whopper of a wave that swept a Californian named Ronald Wilson Reagan into the White House Caught up in Reagan’s churning current the GOP took over the majority in the US Senate for the first time in 26 years and Republicans — including one named Jim Hansen from Farmington Utah — snatched 33 House seats away from the Democrats Four years later Reagan cruised to an even bigger election lease win to get another four-yeon the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave He set a record in that election by accumulating the highest electoral vote in US history That Reagan landslide of Libya “We have had incessant warfare to try to unseat the Sandinis-ta- s We have had arms shipments to Iran while we were feeding defense secrets to Iraq and now we have the convoying of ships in the Persian Gulf” Williams said he believes Reagan also has violated treaties and the US Constitution By giving aid to the Contras the administration has violated among other things the United Nations Charter in which the United States has committed to peaceful resolution of disputes and the Treaty of the Organization of American States in which the United States has committed to not intervening in affairs of member states the professor said Reagan also has violated the First Amendment by stifling access to government documents by the public Williams charged He mentioned the administration policy of requiring Americans who subscribe to a communist magazine from Cuba to obtain an import license so the government knows who they are f he professor also rapped Reagan for keeping in his administration See REAGAN on 3F ar 49-sta- te prompted Democratic mouthpiece Tip O'Neill to call him probably the most popular figure in the history of American government “We have never seen his equal" said O’Neill in the hours after Reagan's 1984 cakewalk Associated Press President Reagan smiles and waves at the Finlandia House in Helsinki after giving a speech last week on human rights He was on his way to Moscow Looking back on the last eight years Utah Republican Party Chairman Craig Moody said Reagan has been able to turn his popularity into a fistful of power to wield from the Osal Office “W'e’ve not had a president who's assumed more power who has been willing to fight for more power” Moody said “If he gets in trouble instead of pulling back Ronald Reagan takes to the airwaves “You wanna fight? He’ll fight you” Contrasting Reagan with his predecessor Democrat Jimmy Carter Moody said both were former governors “but the difference was that Ronald Reagan really mobilized the public and he recognized if the public would support him he could push Washington to do things they didn't want to do He rode the horse in and said ‘I'm here’ and the public backed him” Utah Democratic Chairman Randy Horiuchi agrees Reagan’s been one of the most popular presidents “Clearly he's the ’Great Communicator’ the master of the the master of the phrase quoted the next day in the newspaper" Horiuchi said “We are living in the age of the the age of the commercial bite and President Reagan fits that so well" Despite that popularity Horiuchi said historians will treat Reagan unkindly for what the Utah Democratic leader calls failures in the areas of the national deficit trade deficit human rights and federal programs dumped without support funding onto POWER on 3F one-lin- one-lin- er er lo-S-ee |