George,

With the current crop of Republican "wannabes" attempting to canonize Ronald Reagan, I thought it appropriate to attempt to reduce him from sainthood to a mere mortal.

Just a few of the "hallmarks" of Reagan's "reign" beside his adulation of Foulwell.

Reagan gives one of his first campaign speeches in Neshoba County Mississippi where three civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman and Cheney, were brutally murdered and buried under an earthen damn by members of the KKK. He encourages the rednecks by telling them of his strong belief in "states rights."

He tells us that trees are causing air pollution as much as cars. He tells us that catsup is a vegetable and should be treated as such as regards children's lunches.

He fires the Air Traffic Controllers, without a clue as to who will manage the airways, putting the lives of countless travelers in jeopardy. He speaks in Williamsburg, Virginia announcing that government is THE problem, essentially declaring war on the Federal Government (think Timothy McVeigh and his reason for blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City).

His Teleprompter machine malfunctions as he is speaking at the UN and the real quality of his demented mind is in full view.

In 1985, he visits a cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, where many of the murderous Hitler-era WaffenSS members are buried, their headstones in full view.

He cancels his first meeting with Gorbachev in Iceland because wife Nancy's astrologer advises the "timing is bad."

He ignores the growing epidemic of AIDS, siding with the Falwell crackpots that are calling it "God's Retribution;" he changes his tune, somewhat, after one of his Hollywood chums, Rock Hudson dies of the incurable disease.

The list is endless; no president, aside from the current occupant, has done more to dismantle the promise of our Constitution to "promote the general welfare," than did Ronald Reagan.

Harry Tenney (Electronic mail, May 20, 2007)