I was flipping around the tube Saturday afternoon and happened to surf by MSNBC, where an anchorette was reporting that the condition of former President Ronald Reagan was deteriorating rapidly and that he wasn't expected to survive the day.  Definitely a sinus-clearer for a heretofore non-descript weekend.  Then, about an hour later, my wife told me that he had, indeed, just passed away.

It's funny how this kind of event can impact us.  That Mr. Reagan was in declining health was hardly news - he'd suffered from Altzheimer's for a decade - and apart from that he was in his nineties.  Intellectually you knew that he didn't have long to live.  And yet, as the fortieth President himself once said when his mother died (Is there ANYTHING this man DIDN'T say?), no matter how well prepared you are or think you are for the passing of a loved one, when it happens it's still a shock.

Oh, sure, that's appallingly pretentious of me even to quote.  I never met Ronald Reagan, and the closest thing to a personal encounter I ever had with the man was a White House Christmas card I received in 1984 after I had sent him a letter expressing my heartfelt support (which did not include a contribution, I should add, since I was in college then and didn't have any money to speak of).  Yet like most Americans, I felt like I knew him. 

And therein was, if there was one such thing, the secret of his political success: his ability to personally connect with the American people.

When Ronald Reagan spoke, people listened.  Was this force of personality?  Yes, in a way; you knew that he meant every word he said, because every word he said came out of his closely held personal beliefs, and you knew that his commitment to those beliefs was unshakeable.  There was never any "nuance" or "triangulation" or flip-flopping; with Ronald Reagan, what you saw was what you got.  And as 93 states and 974 electoral votes demonstrated, the American people very much liked both what they saw AND what they got.

The bottom line is that Reagan was right - on everything - and he KNEW he was right.

But being right and knowing it isn't enough to get elected dogcatcher in and of itself.

It is said of many a "tough guy" that they are extraordinarily kind and gentle "off the field" or "out of the ring" because, having proven their toughness, they have no need to flaunt it to assuage any insecurity.  In much the same way, Ronald Reagan exuded greatness in a time of national malaise and international peril that literally saved the country and the planet, while retaining an undiminished humility of which few politicians would even be momentarily capable.  For the Gipper, it really WASN'T about him, or his personal "legacy"; it was about doing what was right and what was best for America.

And that is what came across when he spoke to the American people.  That was the connection that he made with us, and provided the foundation for the covenant that we made with him.  He was a leader who did not shrink from LEADING in a direction that the "elites" still defame and ridicule to this day.  He really embodied that political cliché of being “president of ALL the people.” And we followed him, and America was reborn.

This is what history will ultimately record of the Reagan presidency.  That just as George Washington gave birth to the Union, and Abraham Lincoln held it together, so Ronald Reagan saved it from subjugation and/or destruction - and did it in style.

34,087 diems Dutch carpe'd.  And now he has ridden off to the "shining city on a hill," to take up eternal residence with the divine LandLord - perched high in the saddle to the end.

And "the New Beginning."

Maranatha, Mr. President.