[clooney4824]

Mark Steyn is the best!! What a wordsmith!

[lonevoice]

Another homerun for Mark Steyn.

"The Great Communicator" was effective because what he communicated was self-evident to all but our decayed elites

The more things change the more they stay the same.

[lonevoice]

"Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal" - Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.

Among Reagan's accomplishments were to "stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries." - Mikhail Gorbachev

"I consider Ronald Reagan one of the greatest U.S. presidents since the World War II because of his staunch resistance to communism and his efforts to defend human rights" - Yelena Bonner, widow of Soviet dissident Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov

"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989." Lech Walesa

Not bad. Not bad at all

[beaversmom]

ping

[NonValueAdded]

Peter Robinson, the speech writer who wrote the famous "tear down this wall" speech the other day explained how that phrase came to be. Conventional wisdom held that the German people "had gotten used to the wall" and there was no point in dwelling on it. Peter went out among the people to get a sense of their sentiment and learned they had strong feelings about the wall. He penned the famous phrase and everyone down the line tried desperately to have it removed from the speech. The State Department was apoplectic! Reagan asked Peter to explain why he wrote it that way, understood the meaning, agreed with it completely, and overrode everyone. He kept in the phrase and delivered the address. Important concepts communicated simply and clearly.

[eureka!]

+

[FreedomPoster]

Ping list ping.

[metesky]

Great un-excerpted column, kattracks.

I really appreciate your pings, Pokey.

[Fiddlstix]

A Great Article. Thanks for posting it.
God Bless President Reagan.
He is now in the arms of God.
God Bless America!

[Paul_B]

Very moving. Great, great job.

[aculeus]

The elites were stupid about Reagan in a way only clever people can be.

[dead]

He always says it best.

Edmund Morris is a fey boob, btw.

[foreshadowed at waco]

I remember growing up and seeing stories about people who tried to scale the wall and escape to the West...they were usually gunned down and left lying there as a warning. The Eastern side of the wall was mined, had guard towers, barbed wire, and dogs on chains who discouraged any East Germans from getting too close. Some tried anyway.

When I was 21 I went to Europe after college. I was in Hungary and Yugoslavia--2 countries still behind the Iron Curtain. There were soldiers armed with machine guns on every street corner. Everyone wore drab colors and moved cautiously. The fear of ordinary people to speak openly about politics, even behind closed doors, taught me what I needed to know about Communism.

God bless Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, the Pope and Lech Walensa for standing firm.

[foreshadowed at waco]

I remember growing up and seeing stories about people who tried to scale the wall and escape to the West...they were usually gunned down and left lying there as a warning. The Eastern side of the wall was mined, had guard towers, barbed wire, and dogs on chains who discouraged any East Germans from getting too close. Some tried anyway.

When I was 21 I went to Europe after college. I was in Hungary and Yugoslavia--2 countries still behind the Iron Curtain. There were soldiers armed with machine guns on every street corner. Everyone wore drab colors and moved cautiously. The fear of ordinary people to speak openly about politics, even behind closed doors, taught me what I needed to know about Communism.

God bless Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, the Pope and Lech Walensa for standing firm.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

"Yes," said the old man, "that is my job."

It says much about him that even when other things faded that one thing remained. He knew what he was doing, it was not chance or happenstance. That was what he was determined to make happen. And he did. RIP Mr President.

stupid monitor got all blurry...

[Pilsner]

It is still a shock to remember just how fast the Commies collapsed. I was in law school in Lubbock at the time, and lived in the same private dorm with two West German girls. They were typical Euro-weenies, Green (Gruene), Socialist and far more fond of Gorbachov than Reagan, who had just left office. The year began with them patiently explaining that Communism was forever and we (Reagan supporters) were ignorant and naive for trying to oppose it. By January they were a bit confused and saying that German reunification might take place in ten years, but only if Bush (who was President by then) backed off and gave the Commies breathing room. By May, when the school year was over and they flew home, East Germany was gone. They never did get around to admitting they were wrong about Reagan, but they did at least shut off the rote condemnation of him.

[The South Texan]

I think Lady Thatcher slapped the media and liberal establishment even more with that taped eulogy during the funeral.

I almost stood up and applauded.

[Paul Ross]

One man who understood was Yakob Ravin, a Ukrainian emigre who in the summer of 1997 was strolling with his grandson in Armand Hammer Park near Reagan's California home. They happened to see the former president, out taking a walk. Mr. Ravin went over and asked if he could take a picture of the boy and the president. When they got back home to Ohio, it appeared in the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade. Ronald Reagan was three years into the decadelong sunset of his life, unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But Mr. Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. "Mr. President," he said, "thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the communist empire." And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. "Yes," said the old man, "that is my job." Yes, that was his job.

[jmstein7]

BUMP!