No More Shut-Eye

COME on. Admit it. Your Great Distaste for the Great Communicator has evolved, after eight years, into a mild appreciation, even a fondness. On his way out the door, Ronald Reagan knows he has charmed nearly everyone at the party.

So long, folks, nice seducing you.

There are still some detractors. Jesse Jackson's denunciation of Reagan and his policies--"The gap between the haves and have-nots has widened"--rings clear. But Jackson is among a small group of dissenters. As he leaves office this week, Reagan's approval rating is nearly 66 percent.

The past eight years have been not an era of good feelings, as Reagan would like us to believe, but an age of amnesia. With his sweet voice, Reagan has numbed the nation. His speeches, the last of which, his "farewell address," took place last Thursday, have been trips to the dentist's office. Get the novocaine ready, Nancy, I'm speaking to the country tonight.

Reagan had an ability to console the inconsolable. Witness his speech after the Challenger explosion. He could also explain away the inexplicable. Remember Bitburg? The Iran-Contra scam?

He could make us feel better about ourselves when we were not, in fact, any better. Jackson is right. The gap between rich and poor has expanded under Reagan, and it has become commonplace to find homeless, working families. The portion of the population that lives under the poverty level grew from 11 percent in 1980 to 13.6 percent in 1987; the percentage of children under the poverty level jumped from 16 percent to 20 percent in the same period.

Thanks to Reagan's tax cuts, the rich were able to fill their garages with Porsches. Meanwhile, the poor were watching their streets become battle grounds, drug lord squaring off against drug lord. While the average person in the top two quintiles of income got wealthier during the Reagan era, the rest of the country got poorer.

WE will give Reagan credit where he deserves it. Our new rapprochement with the Soviet Union--and the accompanying INF treaty--is healthy. The evil empire has become the nice family down the block.

In his farewell address, Reagan cited the nation's economic recovery as his greatest achievement. Since the 1982 recession, 17 million new jobs have been created. The United States is supposedly experiencing the greatest peace-time recovery in its history. Still, many of the new jobs created pay the lowest wages, and minority unemployment has increased.

Reagan fueled the recovery on a strange formula, a mixture of tax cuts and increases in government spending. As Lloyd Bentsen pointed out in his debate with Dan Quayle, it easy to give the appearance of prosperity when you're writing hot checks. When the creditors come to collect on the country's $1.8 trillion deficit, Reagan will not be around to answer the door.

As Reagan heads West, to retirement in California, he will leave in his wake a trail of names, men and women who have graced the United States government with gracelessness. James Watt. Anne Burford. Ed Meese. Oliver North. Reagan's Hall of Shame is fuller than any president's.

No one said the presidency is an easy job--especially not Jimmy Carter, Reagan's predecessor and the prophet of malaise. After Carter, who immersed himself so thoroughly in government minutiae that he was even monitoring the White House tennis court schedule, anyone could have made the presidency look simple. Reagan made it look too simple. Nine to five, with an hour for lunch. Three weeks off for major holidays.

But Americans liked him. We must have. Nothing proves this so much as the election of George Bush. Nineteen eighty-eight was America's last chance to cast a ballot for Reagan. George Bush didn't win the election so much for the Gipper as the Gipper won it for him.

We did not endorse George Bush. But we wish him well. And we warn him: We are awake now. The novocaine has worn off.