Obama and Reagan: The likeability factor

Still, as a journalist who covered Reagan’s political career and wrote five books about him, I confess to unease about the likability standard. During Reagan’s presidency, the observation that he was likable was usually a put-down, as in Washington insider Clark Clifford’s crack that Reagan was an “amiable dunce.” Two decades later Howell Raines wrote that “Clifford was charged in a banking scandal and the dunce ended the Cold War.”

Reagan was a transformational as well as likable president. He pledged to cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget, carrying out the first two promises at the expense of the third. In his second term, he negotiated effectively with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, reducing the threat of nuclear war and helping lay the groundwork for the Soviet Union’s demise. Retrospectively, the American people in Gallup polls rank him with Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy as the greatest of presidents.

Obama hasn’t reached such lofty heights and he realized that Americans are disappointed that he hasn’t done better at alleviating unemployment or reviving the housing market. But the “likability” of Obama can also be a put-down. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, derided by Republicans as “Obamacare” and advocated and signed into law by Obama, is a significant achievement, like it or not. When it comes to health care, Obama succeeded where other presidents from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton tried and failed.