Ramesh’s emailer makes a perfectly fine point, though I think he misunderstands or, more likely, I miscommunicated my point. I probably should not have said “liberals and leftists” so much as, say, “media liberals” or “celebrity liberals” or something. I don’t expect the New Republic or the New York Review of Books to suddenly embrace Reagan as a hero. But it says something that all of news networks have been — with a few notable exceptions — fairly unstinting in their praise of Reagan. It may not always be the sort of praise conservatives would like but it is praise — in terms of his greatness, his kindness, his accomplishments etc — that really can’t be taken back. I have no doubt we will get lots of somber tut-tutting about Reagan from the Nation crowd (indeed, I don’t see as many leftists waiting out of good manners as Ramesh’s emailer), but Katie Couric can’t turn the cameras back on Reagan to rip him apart next week. Ditto Tom Brokaw, Jennings and others. The stuff we’re getting now in the major media is the stuff that will be written down in the memories of a generation, whatever postmortem exposés Mother Jones or various bloggers may run in the coming weeks.