UW candlelight vigil for Reagan on Wednesday

From the King County Republicans website:

The University of Washington College Republicans will be hosting a candlelight vigil at the UW Main Campus to remember, reflect and celebrate the life of President Reagan.

At the Flag Pole at the end of Memorial Way
By Odegaard Library and Kane Hall
Wednesday, June 9th at 9:00 PM

Park in parking lot N-1 (north of Parrington Hall)

Candles should be provided (bring some if you can), flowers, pictures, your favorite quotes or speeches.

Whittier Heights meeting

The next meeting is on June 21. Plus a bunch of weed and feed dates are coming this summer. More info on the Whittier Heights Community Council site.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004

Ronald Reagan has died. By the power of his oratory and optimism, he restored America's faith in itself.

He was president when I was in high school and college, and good liberal Democrat that I was at the time, I did not care for him. He seemed a relic, out of touch. But this was only superficial, for he was in touch with the most important knowledge of all: that freedom is America's great promise, and if you work for that all else will follow. Not automatically, but prosperity, equality and justice become much easier to attain.

It took until after Reagan left office for that to come home to me. Brought up in public schools with the unquestioned notion that government could provide prosperity through wealth redistribution, during a time when Nixon practiced detente and Carter accomodation with Soviet leaders, who was I to say that socialism wasn't as valid an ideology as capitalism? Many of my friends believed that: that equality of outcome mandated from above could produce a society with no more, and possibly even less, injustice; that a planned society eliminated waste and provided hope to the poor lacking it in the West. Not that we would necessarily trade places, but both systems being valid the inhabitants of the Warsaw Pact must be as happy with their lives as we with ours.

Nineteen eighty-nine put the lie to that. Thousands of smiling people streaming to the west in their tiny cars, Germans dancing on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, a Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the bloody but exalted downfall of Ceausescu, all showed that Reagan understood where others did not. Given a choice between Communism and freedom, people choose the latter. Reagan was confident in that and because of him we all can be, as we are confident the sun will rise tomorrow.

Update: Of course, Lileks says it better.

A plan for victory

President Bush spoke yesterday at the Air Force Academy graduation:

For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability, and much oppression. So I have changed this policy. In the short-term, we will work with every government in the Middle East dedicated to destroying the terrorist networks. In the longer-term, we will expect a higher standard of reform and democracy from our friends in the region. (Applause.) Democracy and reform will make those nations stronger and more stable, and make the world more secure by undermining terrorism at it source. Democratic institutions in the Middle East will not grow overnight; in America, they grew over generations. Yet the nations of the Middle East will find, as we have found, the only path to true progress is the path of freedom and justice and democracy. (Applause.)