When Gorbachev visited the U.S. in the '80s, the liberals who hated Reagan started raving about Gorbachev, what a genius he was, and almost like they expected him to solve global problems. That seemed strange then. It seemed like Stockholm Syndrome - people falling in love with their captors. Here's an account from 1987:
"Have you ever seen a Soviet motorcade go backward?
That's what happened today when Mikhail S. Gorbachev - after several days of hobnobbing with millionaires, movie stars, politicians, literati and socialites - suddenly decided that he wanted to mingle with the common folk.
If a spaceship had landed in the middle of Washington, it could not have caused more commotion. Pedestrians quivered with excitement. The Secret Service looked terrified. The K.G.B. looked stunned.
''The door opened, he got out, he walked right over and took my hand,'' said Kimberly Spartin, an account executive for Wang Laboratories, looking at her hand as though it were a foreign object. ''I'm still shaking. It was like the coming of the second Messiah or something.''
THE SUMMIT; As 'Gorby' Works the Crowd, Backward Reels the K.G.B. , MAUREEN DOWD, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: December 11, 1987.
Deep down a lot of liberals LOVE Communists.