Meet Ronald Reagan-not only a president whose Washington was far friendlier than today's, but a supporter of tax increases as a means of bringing the budget into balance. Obama's Reagan is a compromiser, a pragmatist, a man who did not allow his ideology to blind him to the need to get things done.

In truth, this depiction of Reagan is entirely false, as is the contention that Reagan-era Washington was a kinder and gentler place than it is today. The hostilities between parties and ideologies in Washington during Reagan's presidency make the present day look tame by comparison. No president in modern times has ever been as reviled. And the hatred of Reagan was justified, to some degree, because his presidency, in the rueful words of the journalist Richard Reeves a decade ago, "damned near destroyed American liberalism."