At Reagan's funeral Lady Thatcher explained why that will not be: "Ronald Reagan is gone now. But we have something Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example."Which is also why George Washington will always be the greatest American ever.
Ideed. Many Americans are doing what George Washington did, because they have the example of George Washington. That means, not that they are the trailblazers that Washington was, but that America has followed Washington not only in his lifetime but for centuries thereafter.If you think about it, Reagan basically undid a lot of the damage of the Johnson Administration and - in the Cold War - some of the damage of the FDR Administration. If, following Reagans example, GWB undoes the worst of the remaining hangover of the FDR Administration, that will be enough to qualify as greatness (though not of course in the eyes of contemporary, liberal, historians).
On 30 April 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony
of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office
as the first President of the United States.
"As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a precedent"
he wrote James Madison,
"it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be
fixed on true principles."