Randi Rhodes RESEARCH: Mythbusting Ronald Reaga

President Ronald Reagan was an actor and a man - but if you believe everything that's been said about him, you might think he won ten Oscars and walked on water. Check out the facts - and the myths - about our Fortieth President.

It's often been said there's no zealot like a convert - but President Ronald Reagan wasn't really a zealot, like so many in the modern Republican Party.

He was, however, a convert, having begun his political affiliation as a conservative Democrat.

As many in the conservative media celebrate - and in some cases, nearly attempt to deify - the man, on what would have been his 100th birthday, there are a lot of myths flying around about what President Reagan was and was not.

• "Ronald Reagan never raised taxes."

Reagan not only raised taxes as President, he raised them on some of the richest Americans - more than once. Robert Shapiro in Forbes gets the facts right.

• "Reagan's economic policies ushered in an era of unprecedented growth."

Not really. Nobel prizewinning economist Paul Krugman uses official Bureau of Labor Statistics' numbers to disprove that claim.

• "All the best current Republican candidates are really Republicans like Reagan."

Most current candidates for major Republican offices aren't even close to the man they claim as their political guide. In fact, if the last five Republican presidents were judged by current Republican party standards, none of them - especially Reagan - were conservative enough for their party today.

• "All those horrible stories about Reagan being less conservative are revisionist history, written after his death."

Joshua Green, currently a senior editor at The Atlantic, was an editor at the Washington Monthly in 2003, when Reagan was still alive. His piece from that year showcases Reagan's liberal legacy.

• "Reagan NEVER had Alzheimer's symptoms while he was in office."

Legendary CBS reporter Lesley Stahl was in a position to have almost daily access to the President. In her book Reporting Live, published in 2000, she relates a story that almost certainly disproves that myth - and also tends to match what is known about the medical progression of Alzheimer's.

• "All you media people didn't REALLY know President Reagan - so you don't know how he REALLY was."

That may be true for some media people. However, President Ronald Reagan's son, Ron Reagan - who has also been a member of the media - had the same kind of nearly unlimited access that most sons do to their fathers. In his recent memoir, My Father at 100, Ron Reagan busts many of the myths - on all sides - that others have constructed about his father.

• That's not all...

Here are five more myts about President Reagan, from Will Bunch, of the Washington Post.