Reagan just died? Hasn't he been died for like 10 years at least?

In the mind numbing race to honor "one of country's best presidents" (pfffft!), the calls for different memorials are out of control. The guy already has the Washington, D.C. airport named after him as well as a freeway in California. Let's wait a bit longer before we create more memorials. Among the SERIOUS ideas I've heard floated around include adding him to Mount Rushmore (thank god this was quickly rejected. My god, what are people smoking?), having something named for Reagan in each of the nation's 3,067 counties, adding a memorial for him on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (more on this below), and modifying U.S. currency to include his image (the first time since 1929 if you don't count coins).  CNN has an article that talks about two different bills (one in the House and one in the Senate) that are trying to put his image on either the $10 or $20 bill. For the love of god, they can't be real? (Let's ignore the fact Nancy Reagan rejected the suggestion of taking FDR off the dime and replacing him with her husband.) Heck, let's put him on both the $10 and $20 bill! In fact, let posthumously anoint him King of the United States of America!

Look, I don't hate the guy. I do find it absolutely foolish that people judge him as one of the greatest presidents ever. I think it's way too early to judge his legacy. You need to wait at least a generation or two or maybe even three before judging the legacy of any president. What I do know is although he was a great communicator, he didn't seem so bright, seemed like he was out to lunch a lot and left our country with a enormous and record setting deficit.

Something that I took great joy in hearing today is even Reagan agreed that we should wait before constructing a national memorial. Major props to Brian for finding this quote from the Washington Post (I heard something similar on CNN today):

Almost since the day he left office, those who were captivated by his idea that the selfish life could be a morally upstanding one have sought to turn Reagan into an icon. Soon, the campaign to put a Reagan memorial on the Mall will begin anew. It doesn't seem to matter to that crowd that Reagan himself signed into law a bill that barred any memorial from being built until 25 years after the honoree's death.

There are currently 11 Presidential memorials in Washington D.C. Some of them are of well deserving and well known presidents (Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, Ulysses S. Grant) and others are the result of political favors. I tried to find a good list of all of them, but sadly failed.

It's extremely unlikely that the National Mall will ever see a Reagan memorial. After the WWI Memorial, Congress passed a law that rules out adding anything new to the Mall. That doesn't preclude a memorial elsewhere in D.C. tho.

Let's calm down folks for a bit and let history do it's work, OK? We get it, he was a popular president for whatever reason (one suggestion: America likes presidents who look good and talk well and don't really care about substance).

Reagan was a president and deserves to be mourned and remembered, but he wasn't flawless.

I think I'm done ranting.

Hey, did you hear President Reagan died?