Feb. 6 will mark the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan\u2019s birth. In a telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding Reagan Day dinners, as they\u2019ve long traditionally done every February for Abraham Lincoln. Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, which have been eagerly shared with me by people who have met Reagan (he talked to anyone) or that have been dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote to everyday Americans over his long lifetime.\u00a0 Reagan was just plain likable. Central to that likability was Reagan\u2019s humility. The word “I” didn\u2019t dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly unpossessed of self-love. And so, I\u2019d like to take the opportunity presented by Reagan\u2019s time of year \u2014 not to mention the month of Presidents\u2019 Day \u2014 to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill Clark, Reagan\u2019s close friend and most significant adviser. At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan\u2019s national-security adviser. His driver was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Bullock was a victim of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to Washington for a better life. Bullock first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began chauffeuring various seniors in the federal government, some of whom didn\u2019t treat him well. In fact, Bullock said a previous Carter cabinet secretary didn\u2019t speak a word to him in three years. Thus, Bullock was taken aback when Clark not only talked to him, asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Bullock, drawing more than a few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his influence in national security, was a target of America\u2019s enemies. One morning, Clark\u2019s father visited Washington. He hit it off with Bullock. Clark\u2019s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Bullock a gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of “John Wayne belt buckle,” as Clark described it. Bullock loved it, proudly displaying it by always leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England\u2019s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan and a few others brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested a “Western belt.” He had one in mind, made by a Santa Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a California rancher.) “Well, what does it look like?” asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a model in the car: Bullock, who was wearing the belt. “Send him up,” ordered the president. Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides and the president. He was in awe. Suddenly, this tough six-foot-four-inch man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and the Great Depression. He was choked up. No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond \u2014 except for Reagan. The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, breathed in and said matter-of-factly, “Mr. Bullock, I understand you have a belt to show me?” It was an “every man” touch. And it put old Bullock immediately at ease. He showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It\u2019s not like challenging Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It\u2019s simply another of many small stories I hear constantly about Reagan, a good president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That\u2019s a thought worth bearing in mind this February. \u2014 Dr.\u00a0Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and the executive director of\u00a0The Center for Vision & Values there. His books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism,”\u00a0“The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan\u2019s Top Hand,” and the newly-released “Dupes: How America\u2019s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Feb. 6 will mark the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan\u2019s birth. In a telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding Reagan Day dinners, as they\u2019ve long traditionally done every February for Abraham Lincoln. Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about Reagan this time of year, running the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Guest commentary: An anecdote to commemorate Reagan\u2019s 100th birthday","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}