NO HONOR IN THIS

Philadelphia Inquirer: Here's a statement guaranteed to divide a room, with some shouting fervent amens and others fierce rejoinders: Ronald Reagan was a great president.
To some, he was a superb leader who restored "morning in America," taught it to trust in free markets again, crumpled the Iron Curtain and reined in an intrusive federal bureaucracy.
To others, he was an amiable, Teflon-coated disaster, who saddled the nation with deficits and debt, led cheers for repression in Central America, and scrimped on domestic needs so that he could squander money on military toys.
There's a modicum of truth and a dollop of hyperbole in both views. But there's little doubt that, in terms of doing what he set out to do, Ronald Reagan was an effective president. He changed the national conversation in enduring ways -- and how many presidents can say that? The dispute over his greatness hinges on what you think of the conservative ideology that he invigorated and brought to power.
Rule of thumb: Such disputes usually take decades of history and scholarship to sort out. That's why the rule of thumb is to wait until a fellow has been gone a while before you cue the trumpets.
But some shock troops of Mr. Reagan's movement want to jump the gun. Led by anti-tax guru Grover Norquist, they want America to start memorializing this still-breathing ex-president as though he were Lincoln's peer.
The troops have been busy: Washington's National Airport has been renamed. Nancy Reagan last month christened the USS Ronald Reagan. A federal building for the bureaucrats the Gipper used to mock has been named after him. As far as the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is concerned, these were only the appetizers. It wants more: memorials in all 50 states, plus a big one on Washington's Mall. It wants his visage as a fifth face on Mount Rushmore (we're not making this up) and as a replacement for Alexander Hamilton's on the $10 bill.
"Hamilton wasn't a president," Mr. Norquist argues. No, he was just a soldier in the Revolution, an author of the "Federalist Papers," the first secretary of the Treasury and the Founding Father who best foresaw the new nation's economic potential. There's an ideological bent to Mr. Norquist's choice of fall guy: Hamilton was also the Framer most enamored of central government.
Hubris: This campaign is premature, partisan and smacks of hubris -- that last flaw so unlike Mr. Reagan himself.
Let history reach its judgment on Ronald Reagan in its good time. If the verdict be greatness, then the memorials that follow will be a nation's considered tribute to a deceased leader.