When President Bush attends the ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning for a new exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, he will bask in the legacy of the most revered icon in contemporary Republican circles.
But many Reagan loyalists are rejecting Bush's claim as Reagan's political heir.
"Maybe he believes it, but I don't think it's objectively true," said Bruce Bartlett, a Reagan administration domestic policy aide and author of a forthcoming book, "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."
Bartlett said his own breaking point came when Bush signed a bill adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare, which Bartlett called "a new, beyond-the-pale entitlement program."
Aside from the battle against terrorism, "Bush has not governed as a conservative ... and like his father is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values," wrote Robert H. Bork, Reagan's unsuccessful 1987 nominee to the Supreme Court, in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
Lyn Nofziger, a longtime Reagan advisor, said he had heard of similar unhappiness with Bush and shared in those sentiments but declined to elaborate.
"I hear a lot of complaints, but I don't want to get into that," he said, adding that many disgruntled Reagan administration staff members are loath to publicly attack a Republican chief executive when he is mired in his lowest job-approval ratings to date.
Some Reagan supporters fault Bush for an array of perceived betrayals of the Reagan legacy.
These include an increase in federal spending, signing a broad campaign financing bill that some believe curtails free speech, and passage of the No Child Left Behind Act that many say interferes with states' rights.
More recently, many are livid over his nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court.
Bush was never shy about his admiration for Reagan, lauding his optimism and "clear vision." As a presidential candidate in 1999, Bush said that, after his father, Reagan was the president he most admired.
"Bush launched his presidency with many believing that he was going to be the second Reagan, and so there was a lot of enthusiasm for him among Reaganites," said Harvard professor David Gergen, who worked for Reagan. "But there is an increasing amount of disillusionment," particularly with Bush's domestic policies.
