In defense of Obama on Ronald Reagan

I'm sure youve all read or heard Obamas recent remarks on Ronald Reagan, and the tantrums from the non-Obama-crazy left in reaction to it.
Everyone who knows me knows I have a statue of His Holiness in my closet at which I lay sacrifices of jelly bellies and the homeless in vain attempts for his reincarnation, so Im not going into that. Instead, I ask, "what the hell is the fuss about?"
Obama has referenced both FDR but more commonly and more recently the Dead Kennedys in his speeches and interviews when trying to describe the kind of change he plans to bring to Washington. It is only natural, therefore, for him to pull a more recent example, that of the Reagan shift of 1980.
He is absolutely right about exactly what he said: that Reagan shifted the agenda of the country for the next 12 to 15 years. He did not, as soviet blowhard bloggers have accused, make a value claim on the change, whether it was for the good of the country or not.
He did not attribute my party as being the one with "all the ideas", as Hillary has recently inferred and ranted about. He simply, and rightly, stated that Ronald Reagan shifted the domestic and foreign agenda like no President since. The Reagan Tax Cuts, foreign entanglements, and attacks on social programs were not reversed by Clinton, the only Democrat President of the last 25 years. Instead, President Clinton "worked with" Republicans to "reform" (ha!) welfare, refused to return the upper income tax brackets to pre-Reagan levels, and furthered our foreign entanglements with fun misadventures in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Sure, Clinton, and the recently majority Democrat Senate and House, tried to shift things a bit back to left, but most of these measures were either severely watered down thanks to deal-breaking with Republicans, or failed entirely on an electorate that, for better or worse, had shifted to the center/right-of-center after the four year trainwreck known as the Carter Presidency.
Reagan and the neocons have, for better or worse, changed the course of American politics, both in the domestic and foreign fronts. Obama hit the nail on the head, and is getting reamed for it from the naysayers. There is no point to debate in what he said- its political history.
The debate rages between sides of course about the nature of the Reagan legacy, but one part of it is wisely being used by Obama: by the time Reagan ran succesfully, the country had had enough with the status quo. They were sick of the then-current agenda, and put an end to it.
That is not up for debate.
Whether or not Americans feel the same way now under Captain Kangaroo as they did under the goofy-toothed peanut President; and whether Obama can capitalize on it and enforce a Reagan-sized shift, is.