Editorially, the San Diego Union-Tribune is moderate-to-right on the political spectrum. Those offices are on the fourth floor.

On the third floor is the newsroom. The newsroom is largely left-to-very-left.

So, I was only moderately surprised when I walked by and heard an editor opining on Ronald Reagan's legacy and state that the reporting ignored the "fact" that Reagan "wrecked the economy."

This editor is old enough to know better.

Some of the criticisms of Reagan's presidency are certainly valid. We shouldn't whitewash Iran-Contra. His reaction to the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon was (in hindsight) understandable but wrong in that it encouraged further acts of terrorism.

But he "wrecked the economy"? Not even Paul Krugman believes that. In fact, no credible argument can be made to support that statement (see Luskin).

That liberal media.

On a related note: I've heard and read that Reagan "allowed AIDS to spread," or some other nonsense formulation, back in the '80s because he didn't speak out about it.

I just have such a hard time seeing free-loving San Francisco homosexuals during the 1980s taking a 70+ year old Republican's advice when it comes to not sleeping around and using condoms. Can anyone really imagine the gay community saying to themselves: "Reagan's warning us, so we'll stop"? Whatever happened to the demand that Republicans stay out of peoples' bedrooms? Now Reagan is condemned because he wouldn't go into gays' bedrooms?