RateItAll: The Opinion Network

The most over rated. Said it before, just a doddering old fart!

The greatest hands down.Therefore,he was underrated.

I voted for him zero (as in 0) times. Just an actor that had good speech writers. Big deal. Who cares? What good actor couldn't read a good speech. What about Iran Contra?

Falsely credited with having won the cold war. Somehow, the Russian people who put their lives on the line bringing down the regime elude credit.

His buy now, pay later policy was bad for this country and our future.

An amazing public speaker and rallying man for the GOP to look for wafter watergate. His personality traits made him a much more likeable president than anyone since JFK. Positives: He improved the nations self confidence, helped strengthen the military, boost wall street, grow the portfolios of the upper class. Negative: His economic plan and tax cuts (heavily tilted towards the wealthy and businesses) layed waste of the middle class and stay at home moms, ballooning deficits, Star Wars ($100 billion and counting). Although he was a "B-Rate" actor, he could have won many of oscars during his 8 years in office.

It's scary that people remember him as a successful president.

for me as a european who lived near the frontier of eastern and western world (germany) reagan was a big hope - after carters policy of doubts and weakness. to be understand right: i m not that guy that appreciates always and in general the conservative point of view. doing the same is not always the same in fact. so for example i disagree completely with your re-elected president bush. to compare them is worthy - cause we see what made reagan such an extraordinary president: reagan was able to talk and act hard and consequently when the situation needed that. after a period of american weakness, the trauma of vietnam, the unsucessfully try to free your people in iran and that big economical american crisis he was the right man to change the situation. first psychologically. he gave the americans back their selfbelief. in a period where the soviets tried to change the status quo (occupation of afghanistan, building of new atomar rockets ss 20 and bringing it into the german socialistic republic) he was able to react hard and without any compromise: he started to do the same. and said: we will be able to win that competition cause we re economically much stronger. we all know how the thinghs went. but then - and this makes him a great president in foreign policy - he was able to react having such a partner like gorbatschow (and many people say that it was him who made a reformer like gorbatschow possible. cause the competition of military power brought the su into that big big economical crisis). this makes a great president in my opinion. being strong, but not selfish. staying consequent but also listening to signs. he is in that way one of the most important personalities of the 20th century. he suceeded without that any shot was made... bush jr.is also conservative, but - coming perhaps from his religious belief that he was choosen for a task from fate, he thinks in these stupid categories of good and bad. and he misses to see or listen to signs. he ll never be able to be a diplomat. and he misunderstands the meanong of that words friend- and partnership. reagan was also strong in his beliefs- but rational enough to notice that difficult situations need different treatments. at this time just the states were able to take that position in the western world. as they would be today. but at that time it was a natural leadership, not a forced one. and he never tried treating his allied like vasalls. this makes a good president. for you and your country, guys, he did a lot: he gave a doubtfull nation back what the nation needed so hard: to belief in its own values. and as i see with his economical policy he prepared what you had as profit during the years of clinton: a big econimcal growing. reagan was one of the most important us-presidents in history. seen from the outsided-perspective . so he s perhaps underrated in the public opinion.

As some of the other comments have noted, Ronald Reagan is both over and underrated, depending on the political persuasion of the analyst. While Reagan was not the perfect second coming of Pericles (the famed philosopher king of Athens) as many of his advocates like to believe, he was not the confused and inept grandfather that his opponents like to portray. An objective analysis suggests that Reagan should be credited for ending the economic morass by reducing the draconian tax burden (even most modern Democrats do not advocate a return to those rates) and regaining control over inflation, increasing public morale by using positive messages and interjecting some Teddy Roosevelt energy, and accelerating the end of the Cold War by essentially calling the Soviet bluff. On the downside, Reagan did make some poor personnel decisions for his early administration (eg James Watt), but many presidents do. Of course Reagan had replaced most (if not all) of these people by his second term. The bottom line is that Reagan is both under and overrated, depending on who is making the call.

Reagan is the most evil person ever to have held public office. Yes, he lowered the tax rate which needed it but he also caused huge deficits, which were out of control until Clinton's administration. Homelessness was never as bad as it was during his administration, health care was at an all time low, firing the air traffic controllers who were over worked and wanted better working conditions to make the air ways safer, THEN naming an airport after him, what a slap in the face. He did more to wipe his feet on the working people of America than any other president. Just for his actions in Central and South America he should have been impeached. He helped to built Sadam Hussien's arsonal and lined his (Hussien's) pockets. He may have brought the Soviet Union down quicker but it was on it's way out anyway and was inevidable. I'd give Reagan a negative numbers if I could.

Growing up in California under Gov. Reagan and suffering his poor policies was suffcient. If I had not had the parents I had I would be completely un-educated. His damage to the state educational system is still be felt today.

How did he get so high on the list? Anyone remember how he devastated our econmy for 10 years?!?

Smart enough to select and manage excellent people to surround and advise him. He was able to take this adivse because he wasn't overwhelmed with his ego

He was overated by republicans and underated by the media and democrats. He did some good and bad things. Reagan dramatically lowered taxes (top tax bracket was 70% when he came to office and 30% when he left) which he deservidly earned praise. Unfortunately he increased spending and deficits dramatically as well which he deservidly earned scorn.

You can see, the old left is still alive and bitter as ever. What's curious is that liberals seem to claim ownership of tolerance, fairness, and generosity, yet they continue to make these cruel, unsubstantiated accusations and remarks, even now. Rave on guys.

THe mess this country is now in has a lot to do with the destructive presidency of Ronald Reagan. KCunning

Anybody here remember what a Savings and Loan was? Was there not a Lebanon at one time? RR was not a bad man. But all this hero worship about the most crooked administration in American history is pathetic. But some folks just have to build monuments for Pagan worship to feel good.Dickering with American lives just to win an election was truely despicable. And then taking credit for their return was disingenious. Overrated is an understatement.

America was lucky to survive his administration.

He simply lead this country back to the greatness that it had not seen since the 1950's. It was his course of action that brought down the Berlin Wall and ultimately the U.S.S.R. He brought in brilliant people who put their own ideas into his outline of what he thought our foreign and domestic policies should be. It was nothing less than America in action. Except for Socialists and despots, this entire world is a better place because of him.

There are people in the United States who believe that Reagan's face should be carved into Mt. Rushmore, that his face should appear on the one dollar bill, and that he is the lord Jesus himself, resurrected to bring down God's wrath upon ungodly communists and Libyan dictators. I disagree with these people. If this is your opinion, then you are vastly overrating the man. Actually, whatever your opinion is, it is probably an overestimation.

Under-rated is one word. Mis-represented and misunderstood describe his accomplishments

His impact on this country as president will always be underestimated. Never given his due credit for his lasting impact on the world and the US. He caused change, and he stayed with the vision he had when he ran in '80. Loved by many as well as vilified by others.

EASILY the most overrated president ever. He portrayed a president for eight agonizing years and left this country in shambles. When this Klan member left office crime was out of control, drug abuse was at epidemic proportions, homeless became a legitimate social class, rich people grew much richer and the poor suffered proportionately. Gang crime grew in the communities while this fool looked the other way, interest rates shot throught the roof, etc. I have NEVER witnessed a greater lack of compassion toward the less fortunate than this heathen exibited. It is, and will always be incredible. Forget the cold war crap. Ronald Reagan had no intention of outspending the USSR. That's just the way it worked out. His real intention was to simply have more weapons than them, which is stupid when your're speaking of nuclear arms. The 80's were a dark decade for the common man because of Reaganomics which NEVER trickled down. Thank God for term limits.

A great president who had a significant impact domestically and internationally. Only a few men who have served in the White House have had that kind of impact as President. Underrated by too many individuals who do not view history in an objective manner.

He popularized the lie of trickle-down economics and made greed the national pastime. Now, the gap between rich and poor is horrifically wide.

Without Ronald Regan, we would still have the threat of communism and the Soviet Union. We are lucky Regan defused the situation. Just imagine the world with the Soviet Union still around and Bill Clinton in office. It's a very ugly sight and we're lucky it never occured.

Possibly the most overrated president of my lifetime. I was so happy when he left office. :)~~~

An amazing President....his foreign policy largely averted nuclear war and brought democracy to Russia. And as we saw in the Clinton years, the effects of the Reagan tax cuts allowed for investment creating the period of growth we enjoyed in the 1990s.

While for the most part I despised his policies, you'd have to be willfully blind to miss the role he played in bringing down the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War. Every year it went on was another throw of the dice, and sooner or later the missiles were going to fly. I don't like right-wing politics, but Reagan did this one thing right.

Right now Reagan is an UNDERRATED president. Sure, America loved him when he was president. The fact that he won by the biggest landslide the nation's ever seen in 1984 should say something. When he took office the first time he had a big mess on his hands similiar to that of California's but different. The threat of Nuclear war was getting more and more imminent, inflation was out of control, interest rates were way high and so were the taxes. Reagan dealt with every one of these problems and defeated them. Yet, there are people in the mainstream media and in the liberal circle who now crucify Reagan and this is why I say he is underrated.

Read the chapter about Reagan's speech in Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. That's all you need to know about this brain-dead buffoon.