Opinion: Nancy Reagan returns to a royal Washington welcome

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Former First Lady Nancy Reagan got the royal treatment today in Washington. Though her husband was a Republican who often tussled with Democrats on Capitol Hill, and though she was often reviled for her expensive clothes and socialite friends, today there was no sign of partisanship or any long knives.

At the Capitol Rotunda, leaders of Congress honored President Ronald Wilson Reagan with a statue celebrating what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called ‘that storied life.’ Calling Reagan ‘one of the giants of the 20th century,’ McConnell said that the former Hollywood actor and governor of California ‘stood taller than any statue.’ The source of his height, said McConnell, ‘is here with us.’ Praising Mrs. Reagan for helping to lift the nation ‘when we needed it most,’ he added, ‘America is still grateful.’

(As each state gets two statues in the Capitol, the state Legislature earlier cleared the way by knocking from his pedestal Thomas Starr King, a 19th century San Francisco Unitarian Universalist preacher whose image has graced the Capitol for 78 years.)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Reagan marriage ‘one of great love stories of all time’ and said that the American people benefited from the first family’s partnership.

Thanking Mrs. Reagan for her activism, Pelosi said, ‘Your support for stem-cell research made a significant difference in lives of many Americans.’ Noting Reagan’s fierce belief in....

...advocating freedom, she marveled that pieces of a fallen Berlin Wall are embedded in the statue, commemorating Reagan’s oft-quoted speech to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘Tear down this wall.’

Finally, she also praised Reagan for something not often seen on Capitol Hill -- manners.

‘President Reagan understood the value of bipartisanship and civility,’ Pelosi said. ‘He was ever a gentleman, who never questioned the motives of a person’ in political disagreements.

And former White House Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State James A. Baker III, calling Reagan ‘a principled pragmatist,’ said the 40th president left office having strengthened the military, restored the economy and set the stage for the fall of communism.

Then Nancy Reagan spoke for herself, saying the ‘statue is a wonderful likeness of Ronnie, and he would be so proud.’ Noting that the last time she was in this room, the former president lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, she said it was ‘nice to be back under happier circumstances.’ She especially thanked Pelosi for all she had done to make the ceremony happen, and the two exchanged a warm embrace afterward.

At the White House, the 45-year-old First Lady Michelle Obama hosts the 87-year-old Mrs. Reagan at a private lunch -- just the two of them.

On Tuesday, at a bill signing ceremony to create the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission, President Obama whispered to Mrs. Reagan and his wife ‘just thinks the world of you.’

As for Mrs. Obama, she called all the former first ladies after Obama’s election last November, seeking their advice about the job of first lady and life in cocoon of the White House. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Mrs. Reagan said her advice? Have lots of state dinners.

-- Johanna Neuman

[Update: An earlier version of this post identified Thomas Starr King as just Starr King.]

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