Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency

Rating:
Summary: A true American Conservative Leader
Review: I love this book as it contains what it means to be a true conservative and not a false one. As the great Conservative economist F.A. Hayek once stated "    . . . the whole conception of social or distributive justice is empty and meaningless; and there will therefore never exist agreement on what is just in this sense... I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice."
That is in a Capitalistic Socieity there will be more losers than winners and that is just the way it is. If you can not make ends meet it is not "societys fault" but your own. Don't expect your mommy "the state" to make it right!
From here the author goes own to explain how all the scandals of the Reagan presidentcy where not the leaders fault but those of his underlings for they were to blaime not him. The buck stops there my friend!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Read
Review: This is an excellent "insider" perspective on Reagan's management style and the Iran-Contra scandal. Wallison debunks thoroughly the prevailing view of the liberal media that Reagan was intellectually limited, disengaged and manipulated by his advisors. Reagan's remarkable accomplishments are attributed to the clarity of and his unfailing focus on a few "big ideas" (e.g. a smaller and less intrusive government, freer trade, a strong defense, faith in the traditional American values of individualism and sense of personal responsibility) and his ability to inspire those within the administration to actively pursue his policy objectives. As legal counsel to the President, Wallison was the White House staffer most involved with Iran-Contra. He persuasively argues that the scandal was basically a foreign policy blunder made worse by a renegade NSC staff (particularly Oliver North) and a press corps more interested in scandal mongering than issues.