"I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him."

[gldstwmn]

So here it is. If you wish to discuss the Reagan era good or bad then this is the place. For those of you who are going to scream that this is inappropriate, I don't see how having a discussion of this man's legacy is in poor taste.
While I am sorry for his family's loss, many people will take this time as an opportunity to immortalize President Reagan. Those of you too young to remember might want a more objective view of what went down from 1980-1988.
Reagan was elected after what is now referred to as the "October Surprise," an event which followed the kidnapping of 52 Americans at the US Embassy.
While then President Carter worked tirelesssly to bring the hostages home, including a failed rescue mission and an agreement in October 1980 (one month before the election) to unfreeze Iran's assests in exchange for safe return of the hostages, they were never released until the day Reagan was sworn in as President. Carter's seeming failure to bring the hostages home cost him the election.
It's been widely reported that in October of 1980, George H.W. Bush, then the vice presidential candidate, took a secret trip to Paris to meet with envoys of the Iranian government and cut a deal with them in exchange for arms and money from the US to hold the hostages until after the election.
Reagan's presidency saw the onset of AIDS, which he completely ignored, letting it rage out of control because it was mainly considered by his administration to kill only homosexuals and intravenous drug users. He was also responsible for the largest budget deficits of the time and he gutted FDR's New Deal programs. One large side effect of this was that residents of state and federally funded mental institutions were turned out onto the street creating a homeless population as yet unseen by America.
Then there was Iran-Contra and the myth that he won us the Cold War. Anyone want to give their input on those?
I wish I could find something positive about his presidency to post but I can't. Reagan was Godfather of what we now know as the NeoCon movement.
"Friends, Romans, country men, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with Caesar."