Posted on 01/28/2011 5:48:53 AM PST by radioone
The Washington Post, which never passes up an opportunity to attack Sarah Palin, has gone after her for criticizing President Barack Obama’s “Sputnik” reference in the State of the Union Address. Palin noted accurately that what Obama was calling for was “big government” as the solution to our problems. She further pointed out big government socialistic solutions are what in part did the Soviet empire in. Those comments sent Steve Stromberg at the Washington Post into a hyperbolic fit, declaring that her analysis is “weird.” But his response indicates that he knows as little about the Soviet Union and Sputnik as President Obama’s speechwriters.
Stromberg says that Palin misconstrues Obama’s main point that “the Americans who responded to early Soviet success in space exploration by educating themselves and out-innovating the Soviets.” But Stromberg misses Palin’s larger and more important point about history: Sputnik was really meaningless in the larger scheme of things. It was all hype, and it was basically used by people in Washington to advance their own political agenda. Perhaps Stromberg should have consulted the Post’s own archives before he went after her. As Newsweek (which the Post used to own) wrote on the fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik:
Less than a week after Sputnik began orbiting Earth once every 96 minutes, politicians and the press had spun it into a shocking symbol of Soviet superiority that could soon lead to nukes falling on American cities. But far from being alarmed by Sputnik, newly released archives show, Eisenhower and his military and intelligence advisers welcomed it. The terror triggered by the uninstrumented, 184-pound silvery satellite, roughly the size and shape of a blue-ribbon watermelon and emitting an A-flat beep from its rudimentary radio transmitter, had little basis in reality.
Newsweek goes on: “With Sputnik’s 50th anniversary this week, we’re in danger of getting it wrong yet again, for the supposed lessons of Sputnik are ones we should actually unlearn.” Ouch. Memo to Stromberg: Read some history next time. Memo to President Obama: quit the myth-making.
Palin is right: Sputnik was the typical government solution; symbolism over substance. The Soviets did not really create a satellite, and Washington really wasn’t threatened by it. They “welcomed it.”
Palin’s other point is that Sputnik was the sort of government bureaucratic program that got the Soviet Union in trouble; it’s an example of what eventually did them in. Citing Wikipedia (what journalistic ingenuity!), Stromberg argues that actually the Soviet Union didn’t have a debt problem until some “thirty years after” Sputnik. Perhaps instead of relying on Wikipedia, Stromberg might have consulted Robert Gates’ book From the Shadows which chronicles, in part, his career as a Soviet analyst at the CIA. (Just in case they are unaware at the Post, this is the same Robert Gates who is now the Secretary of Defense.) On page 173, he accurately points out that the CIA knew early on of the “Soviet economic crisis. From the late 1950s, CIA had clearly described the chronic weaknesses as well as the formidable military power of the Soviet Union.” Hmmm. Do you think this “chronic weaknesses might have had something to do with excessive bureaucracies and the size of government? Note to Stromberg: you will have to close Wikipedia and actually crack a book for this one.
Intellectual debate is well and good, but if you’re going to condescend, you better have something to condescend about. In this case Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post just got schooled by Sarah Palin.
Sarah’s is one of the few patriotic voices able to impact the MSM with the light of truth. Every effort to discredit her has failed utterly. Like most conservative writers she is well researched, pointedly accurate and steeped in a deep understanding of American culture. Her detractors are compromised by an elitist, socialist, tyranny inducing world view that precludes them from objective research. Hammer them with the light of truth. Go Sarah.
Yup, a real dummy. /s
He has an advanced degree from Oxford and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Interesting that a Reagan scholar would “stoop” to defending Palin...LOL.
Fixed it for you.
Wow. That was a really brutal rejoinder to the smug stupid Washington Com-Post and its political counterpart...Obama.
Good for Schweizer for stepping up to the plate and educating the Ivy League historical illiterates.
As are all of your posts.
Why thank you, toots.
Never heard that about the piss ant before, he/she claims to be a guy!
Oh, you heard that about Palin? My bad....lol
You are welcome, Miss piss.
I don't mind you flirting with me now that I know you are a woman.
Ping me!
They should know better by now not to challenge her. She always wins.
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