hmm then a question.

We can attribute all these things to one man: having a booming economy during the 80's, the fall of the Berlin Wall (read any eulogy praising him and you will see examples).

Yet we cannot say that because a leader of the country didn't set an example by the verbal acknowledgement of such a disease, the silence led to a tacit acceptance that since it's a gay disease, why bother telling people or throw money at it? That instead, the best way to deal with this is to lock the ones who test away?

Kudos to the American public who DIDN'T vote this type of legislature into being. However, living during that era, it was really scary realizing a form of McCarthyism was raising its head and the president didn't care enough to address it (or worse, thought the people it affected wasn't his constituents anyway so why bother).

I am not trying to destroy Reagan's legacy. I just have never been a believer in whitewashing after death. My dead friends taught me this lesson, that laughing at someone's foibles after they're dead is an okay deed because all my friends wanted to be known for who they were. There's plenty of other who want to praise Reagan. Let them be his voice.