He certainly had his faults, but he did some great things. The greatest thing he did was restore a sense of confidence and belief in America and it's people. After Carter turned it into a crappy country full of doubt in itself, Reagan came back and brought back the American spirit.
He also was largely responsible for ending the cold war without any violence or bloodshed, and he crushed the air traffic controller union.
That's why many overlook some of the bad stuff, like amnesty, big government spending, weapon sales to Iran etc.
You sound a little like the battered woman who defends an abusive man who 'makes her feel good' by spending her own money to take them on nice trips she can't afford.
He was, literally, a paid spokesman for a long time - but his price tag was very high, the health of the American economy and even to large extent our society and middle class.
He had a very big credit card with which to make the country feel good - the fiscal irresponsibility like no previous administration outside of war had, IIRC.
The liberal presidencies had greatly increased the 'greatness' of our nation - they were far from perfect, but a lot better.
The economy? The issues in no small part came from our oil problems with the middle east during Nixon, leading to ineffectual Republican responses (Whip Inflation Now!, said Ford's buttons for people to wear); while Carter identified the need for a national energy strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil (why, that could lead to things like war in the Middle East) - while Reagan reversed the policies to stay on oil, all the time (why, hello, Saddam, our friend against Iran).
Carter identified the need for fiscal policy to change to beat high inflation - he selected Paul Volcker, who is widely credited on this, to head the Fed. But Volcker's efforts paid off under Volcker, and Reagan is viewed by many as the guy who did all this, rather than the historically bad president he was derailing our economic policies (except leaving Volcker in place).
Now, I would say that Carter was not the best 'paid spokesman' like Reagan was for 'nice feelings', slogans like 'Morning in America'. But how much of that is the effectiveness of the right-wing noise machine, pretty new at that time, to rewrite history? The highlight the right cites in criticizing Carter was his 'Malaise speech' - except it didn't have the word 'Malaise' in it, and the speech is widely viewed as 'correct' by many who read it. But it wasn't 'good optimistic leadership' for 'feeling good'.
Take the Lebanon situation. Let's add a bit to the previous comments on it - but you have to start elsewhere. For decades, the US had had a ruthless policy of supporting the worst dictators in Latin America, in the defense of exploitave US companies there, who wanted any movements against an impoverished, cheap workforce - people who would work for just enough to eat - to be stomped out, ironically creating the public support for resistance just as our own founding fathers had resists far less wrongs from England.
As these were gradually getting better, Reagan did a 180 and backed a return of the ruthless politics. The story in Nicaragua, for example, was a long one of terrible wrongs by US-backed dictators leading up to the Sandanista revolution - but Reagan supported the sponsorship of an army of terrorism, to blow things up, kill local people, try to get the Sandanistas out of power. The Congress, to its credit, not only wouldn't go along but criminalized the support of any such right-wing terrorists.
So, did Reagan follow the law and constitution when the Congress - the body who gets to say if we fight war, what we spend money on, what is criminal - did this? No, his administration illegally worked secretly to break the law and support the Contras - which Reagan called, outrageously for this group of largely former Somoza torturers and security forces and criminals - 'the moral equivalent of our founding fathers', a label that was better applied to the Sandanistas he was at war with.
But how to pay for that war? He couldn't write the check out of the government treasury, the act would be caught and a crime. And that's where the nasty stuff comes up - whether rumored 'cuts' of drug smuggling the CIA allowed in exchange for large sums, or the fact Iran wanted to buy missiles that were also illegal to sell - and which could also let Reagan get our Iranian hostages lest he have the political hit of them as Carter had.
Now, the connection starts to Lebanon: to make these sales, not wanting them exposed, Reagan used Israel as the middle-man in the early days. So you have here Israel serving the request of its one good friend in the world, the most powerful nation in the world whose number 1 foreign aid recipient was Israel, the Security Council member who would veto all those resolutions and protect it at the UN, the request to sell missiles to Iran.
But, now, the President of the United States had just put our national security in danger by giving another nation 'blackmail' material, as it had participated in an illegal activity.
And so Reagan 'owed' Israel for their help - and Israel's interest was to invade Lebanon.
Now, this gets to some speculation as to how much Israel's role on the illegal missile sales might have influenced Reagan's willingness to send US Marines into Lebanon with the Israelis to help them. But it's reasonable to suspect it - and regardless, it's clear the inappropriate incentives were there. And this resulted not only in the US participating in a very dubious Israeli act - but Lebanon resisted with the killing of 249 US Marines with a bomb. At this point, Reagan quickly withdrew, again avoiding the 'bad politics' of staying.
I'm not saying leaving was the wrong thing to do - but I'm raising questions abut his having gone in in the first place, and his reasons for leaving as political.
Much of this did get caught, and Reagan offered up what has to be the worst defense in Presidential history - that his heart said his administration did not trade missiles for hostages, but the facts said his administration did. This a good case where that 'paid spokesman' 'feel good' role he had had a high price - a criminal who could talk his way out of much of the criminal behavior, and get the American people in many cases to side with him, unlike, say, a Nixon whose paranoia and clumsy coverup drove most away.
Reagan fundamentally changed the nation's economic structure, with the tax cuts that changed what had been our tax structure for half a century to cut the top rate nearly in half, beginning a massive shift in a 'class war' for the bottom 80% to get nearly none of the economic growth the next few decades while the top 0.01% percent made far more percentage increases than any other group and the concentration of wealth increased to levels not seen since pre-Great Depression; he started the massive increase of debt, used to buy the public 'feeling good' while the debt ran up, effective politically at the cost of our nation's economic well-being. It was he who created the Social Security 50% addon tax, that was used by his and every later administration for hundreds of billions of dollars per year of off-the-books money to spend with "IOU's" to the future generation of Americans his generation squandered for his political ratings, to keep the power used to enrich the rich.
No, Reagan is a dastardly figure, despite seeming in ways to have some good intentions, who history - bought and paid for in large part by these interests - has been nice to.
And the thousands of Latin Americans killed by his ruthless dishonest policies and the millions subjected to the tyranny he helped get back in power are some to ask about it.
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