Ways of remembering a president

As the nation eulogizes Ronald Reagan, proposals are multiplying to honor him by putting his name or image on important American institutions and symbols, including the Pentagon and the $10 bill.

But for all the kind words that have been said about the 40th president, his eight years in office were sufficiently tumultuous -- and are sufficiently fresh in his critics' memories -- that most proposals will encounter serious opposition.

"He was a very impressive guy," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., "but he was controversial."

Reagan's name already can be found on an airport, a freeway, an aircraft carrier, hospitals, schools, office buildings, post offices and even a New Hampshire mountain. But the process of naming things after Reagan has revived disputes that flared around him when he was president.

Congress in 1998 named National Airport in Washington after the former president -- who fired air traffic controllers during a 1981 union strike -- but only after a partisan row. The Washington transit authority agreed to install new signs with Reagan's name at the airport subway stop only after Congress ordered it. Many consider it ironic that one of the biggest government buildings in Washington, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House, is named after a critic of big government.

Now Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is proposing naming the biggest federal building of all -- the Pentagon -- after Reagan.

A proposal to put Reagan on the dime in place of President Franklin D. Roosevelt already has drawn objections from Democrats, for whom Roosevelt was as much a hero as Reagan is for Republicans.

In addition to a proposal by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to put Reagan on the $10 bill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., has proposed such a tribute on the $20 bill, and Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., has proposed putting Reagan on the 50-cent piece.

"Ronald Reagan was beyond doubt a much better president than Andrew Jackson," Rohrabacher said.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has another way to honor the former president: "The best way to remember President Reagan is to fully fund Alzheimer's research and to find a cure to that dreaded disease sometime soon."