Why I liked Reagan

My friend Karen and I were walking her dogs yesterday when we began discussing our favorite U.S. presidents. We agreed the four best are on Mount Rushmore but disagreed on a fifth. Karen liked FDR and I chose Ronald Reagan.
"Why did you like him?" Karen asked.
Boy, was I ready for this one. That's because the same question had been asked on a radio talk show a couple years ago. "Name me one thing Reagan did that was good," the liberal caller had said to the host. The host answered this way:

Reagan brought us out of Jimmy Carter's economic chaos with its double-diget inflation and double-diget interest rates. "Reaganomics" brought tax cuts which spurred the economy to new heights which we have not seen since.
Second, after four years of almost daily Carter disasters and weak leadership, Reagan stood strong against world bullies like the Soviets, Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the radical Islamic Iran. Remember the Iranian hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter, the most inept president of the 20th century if not in U.S. history? Under Reagan, America refused to back down under the intimidation and threats of the tyrants. Americans once again felt confidant and proud of their nation.
Third, Reagan ignored liberals' calls to cut defense spending in the face of Soviet threats. And when the Soviets tried to match U.S. defense spending their economy collapsed and the Cold War was over. With the death of the Soviet empire, the Russian people and the slave satellite nations of Eastern Europe were finally free.

"So," the radio talk show host said to the liberal caller, "other than these, I guess Reagan didn't do very much, did he?" There was only silence on the other end of the phone line.