By Jim Meyers

Saturday February 6, was Ronald Reagan's birthday, and his son Michael Reagan tells Newsmax that the legacy of America's 40th President can be summed up in one word: freedom.

But Reagan criticized the current President, Barack Obama, for "apologizing" for America instead of "uplifting" the nation as President Reagan had.

Michael Reagan is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show, a Newsmax columnist, and head of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

Michael Reagan talked about how his father changed the world.

He said he'd mark his father's birthday first by speaking at Eureka College in Illinois, where his father graduated with an economics degree.

"Wouldn't you like everyone who serves as President of the United States to have an economics degree?" Reagan said wryly.

He also scheduled Saturday visits to Tampico, Ill., where his father was born, and Dixon, Ill. where he went to high school, before attending a dinner in Chicago with the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

Newsmax.TV's Ashley Martella asked Reagan about the importance of President Reagan's legacy today.

"The importance of the legacy is freedom," Reagan declared.

"With Ronald Reagan it was always about freedom. He never believed that others should not be free as we are free in the United States, and he brought that message to the rest of the world.

"Young people here need to understand the importance of fighting for those freedoms, to keep those freedoms that we have.

"We need to educate our youth to be able to tell that story so they can stand up to these ridiculous, ridiculous professors in college who badmouth America, talk down about America, when they shouldn't be doing that at all."

Martella noted that Reagan has said President Obama isn't doing enough to promote America's role in destroying communism.

"He spends most of his time apologizing for America," Reagan responded. "It's interesting to see that the Democrats always apologize for America and Republicans always uplift America.

"Listen to an Obama speech or a Jimmy Carter speech and then listen to a Ronald Reagan speech. One of them uplifts America and her people and the others do not.

"The other day when Obama gave his State of the Union address, how many times did he use the word ‘I' - 96, 97 times? You can't find Ronald Reagan using the word ‘I' 96 or 97 times in eight years as President of the United States, because with him it was always: We will work together. We can accomplish much. We are Americans. We should be proud.

"That's what he talked about, and there's no pride coming out of this President and this Washington.

"There is no reason for any President or any human being on this planet to apologize for the United States of America. If it were not for the United States we would still be looking at a Cold War, the Berlin Wall would still be up, the Iron Curtain would still be up.

"But because we had a President, and we had the resolve to fight communism and put it on the ash heap of history, millions and millions of people went free. America should be applauded and lauded, not ridiculed like so many in this country seem to want to do."

Reagan noted that his father, despite his landmark call for the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall, was not even mentioned at the 20th anniversary celebration of the Wall's demise last November.

But Michael Reagan is countering that - also in November, he opened the Ronald Reagan exhibit at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, which he says is now visited by 4,000 people a day and is the No. 1 tourist spot in the German capital.

"When you go over there to Berlin, young people actually tell you that America put up the Berlin Wall to keep the communists out of the American sector," Reagan said.

"That's because of the lack of education in that area of the world. There are people over there who don't know how they became free, and young people in America who don't know how to stay free, because we don't teach people the history of the world."

This summer Reagan is launching Liberty Education Tours, taking high school students from the US to the Czech Republic where they can view the 7,000 bunkers and other remains of the Iron Curtain. They will then visit Berlin and the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, and a concentration camp.

The program will also bring students from the former Eastern bloc to various sites in the US, including the Reagan ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., and its simple adobe home.

"Ronald Reagan was one of us," his son added, "a man of great humility and humbleness, and because of that he changed the world."

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