OTHER COMMENTARY / EXCERPTS : Reagan Roars (Why Not?), but Heir’s Image Suffers on Two Sides

Ronald Reagan pulled out all the stops Monday night, and maybe a few that weren’t there. It was a thoroughly partisan address, but a realistic history of the past eight years might bear a striking similarity to a partisan Republican’s--and that’s what made the President’s speech so convincing.

The country is stronger than it was eight years ago. The economy is healthier. National confidence is higher. The prospects for peace are better. Reagan has earned some bragging rights, and he exercised them.

The Reagan years are ending, and nostalgia is setting in even before those years are gone--perhaps because of the almost palpable sense that good times may be going with him. Neither George Bush nor Michael S. Dukakis seems capable of exuding the invincible optimism that Reagan brought to the White House, and that, strangely enough, turned out to be a realistic assessment of the facts.

Who could have been sure eight years ago, besides Reagan and ideological company, that revenues would indeed be increased by cutting taxes? Who in the midst of the Reagan recession would have predicted the longest peacetime expansion of the American economy in history? Nuclear arms were actually reduced once the United States matched the Soviets missile for missile in Europe. Communist expansionism was not only thwarted but also turned back. And the United States has become a model to emulate rather than an example to beware.

As for the deficit, well, no need for the President to go into detail; it’s all the fault of a Democratic Congress, anyway. In a farewell appearance at his own party’s convention, a successful President can fudge a little here and there.

The Reagan Administration looks so good because it is natural, and fair, to compare it with its predecessor. Jimmy Carter has become to the Republicans what Herbert Hoover was to the Democrats for decades: a bogyman to roll out whenever a rash electorate is tempted to change parties. It’s not necessary for Republican orators actually to pronounce his name. Citing the Carter record is enough: the highest inflation rate in 120 years, interest rates somewhere in the stratosphere, the energy crisis, the hostage crisis and, worst of all, the feeling emanating from the White House that there was nothing really to be done except grow accustomed to it all. Malaise, it was called.

With a base line like that, of course the past eight years seem miraculous: inflation cut to 3% or 4%, unemployment down, and the mood of the country so stable that a huge drop in the stock market would be absorbed in a few months and soon seem to be just a blip on the screen. With material like that, Reagan’s speech could scarcely have gone wrong.