TravelLIVE - travel stories, resources and guides for travels within the US, Canada and Abroad. United States Travel Former President Ronald Reagan greets students visiting the Reagan Library in 1997. When I first visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1993, shortly after it opened, one of the permanent exhibits at the time was a video touting the president's economic package. As those words were spoken, quick shots of nay-sayers Tip O'Neill, Walter Mondale and Edward Kennedy were flashed on screen, the point being that those were the bad guys whose ideas stifled growth and initiative. The library, in Simi Valley, Calif., was a glorification of Ronald Reagan.
Most presidential libraries are.
But this one had a particularly hard-edged tone. Those who disagreed with the Reagan philosophy were depicted as wholly out of touch with America. Whether this portrayal was on target depended on who you were. If you were a liberal Democrat, the library was a political valentine to an overrated 40th President who was all style and no substance. If you were a conservative Republican, the library accurately portrayed the accomplishments of a man who brought down the Soviet Empire abroad and generated an unprecedented economic boom at home.