Ronald Reagan

Even in death, Ronald Reagan can still pack 'em in. A standing-room-only crowd filled the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday for the unveiling of a statue of the former president, representing California in Washington's version of a national hall of fame. Nancy Reagan called it a "wonderful likeness of Ronnie," adding, "He would be so proud." The former first lady, her voice choked with emotion, recalled her last visit to the Rotunda, five years ago when Reagan lay in state.

John McCain and Mitt Romney carried their bitter Florida clash into California on Wednesday, each impugning the other's honesty in a hot-tempered debate as they sought to attract voters casting ballots in five days in a coast-to-coast array of primaries and caucuses. McCain, caustic for much of the debate, castigated Romney for what he said was a past insinuation that America should withdraw from Iraq.

In the last few weeks, the Democratic Party has turned on Bill Clinton with the ferocity of 16 years of pent-up resentments. He will not be cut any more slack, and neither will his wife. Meanwhile, the Republican primaries have turned into a Ronald Reagan adoration contest. Neither ex-president deserves what he is getting. Clinton is a victim of long memories; Reagan is a beneficiary of short ones. In the GOP debate at the Reagan Library on Wednesday, Sen.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan was hospitalized in Santa Monica after falling at her Los Angeles home Sunday morning, according to her spokeswoman, Joanne Drake. The cause of the fall was unclear. Reagan's doctor recommended hospitalization as a precaution, and she was admitted while awaiting the results of various tests, Drake said. "She has not broken anything," Drake said. "We don't have anything beyond that." Reagan, 86, was staying in the same room at St.

Should the next president talk to the country's enemies? Barack Obama stresses that he would. Hillary Rodham Clinton equivocates but basically would be averse to premature talks with our adversaries. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, did not address the issue in his recent speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. But the Bush administration has been clear about its approach: Rather than engage our enemies, it has preferred to revile and isolate them.

The GENRE of "instant history" has attracted -- and often defeated -- many able writers at least since "Only Yesterday," Frederick Lewis Allen's stylish 1931 chronicle of the 1920s. Back then, Allen could merrily shrug off sources and subjects he omitted or overlooked. In contrast, today's practitioners of recent history need only boot up to confront a galaxy of data on an infinity of topics -- nagging reminders of how much we don't know and never will.

The tipoff that Gov. Ronald Reagan had a streak of pragmatism in him came soon after his inaugural speech on Jan. 2, 1967, in which he promised to "squeeze, cut and trim" the cost of state government to close a significant budget gap. Two days later, however, he told aides that all the cutting and trimming in the world might not suffice.

Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant -- but less than exuberant -- endorsement. "Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party." They were the only words she would speak during the five-minute photo op. In a written statement, she described McCain as "a good friend for over 30 years."

Charles Z. Wick, the controversial, long-serving director of the United States Information Agency, who raised the agency's profile, doubled its budget and extended its ability to reach foreign audiences through new technology such as satellite television, died of natural causes Sunday at his Los Angeles home. He was 90. Wick, a close friend and advisor of President Reagan and his appointee, was the USIA's longest-serving director, filling the post from 1981 to '89.