June 5, 2004  #01:  Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire™ 
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Ronald Reagan's death today reminds us that his vision lives.·

    Today, Ronald Reagan, the man who, in effect, said the intellectuals were wearing no clothes, died.  He left a legacy that dwarfs the collective legacies of the intellectuals who mocked and derided him.

    He said Communism was destined for the dust-bin of history.  The intellectuals laughed.  They mocked him.  They derided his intellect.  He stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and issued a demand for Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."  The intellectuals laughed.  The mocked him.  They derided his intellect.

    Within one year after Reagan's last year in office, Gorbachev tore down the wall.  The Soviet empire collapsed less than two years after Reagan's last year in office.  None of his intellectual critics in the 1980's had the vision or foresight to expect the the wall the come down or the Soviet Union to collapse as he predicted.

    He persisted in installing short-range missiles in Western Europe to counter Soviet missiles and to serve as an incentive for them to bargain to reduce, rather than merely limit, nuclear weapons.  The intellectuals laughed.  They mocked him.  They derided his intellect.  They demanded unilateral nuclear freezes in hopes of persuading the Soviets to respond accordingly.

    In Reykjavik, Iceland, he walked away from Michael Gorbachev's nuclear-arms-limitations proposals because Gorbachev made them conditional on Reagan agreeing to discontinue research for a space-based defense against nuclear missiles, which he called "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI) and which the intellectuals mocked as "Star Wars."  The intellectuals laughed.  They mocked him.  They derided his intellect.  He knew he could eat his cake and have it too.  Less than a year later, Gorbachev baked Reagan the cake he demanded-- i.e., reductions in nuclear weapons without foreswearing SDI.

    He expressed the belief that if the Nicaraguans were to have a truly free election, they would oust the Sandinistas.  The intellectuals laughed, they mocked him.  They derided his intellect.  Yet, thanks to the "off the shelf" covert operations masterminded by Bill Casey, Reagan's CIA chief, continued support of the Contras put enough pressure on the Sandinistas to hold an election, in which Nicaraguans voted in favor of Reagan's vision rather than those of the "intellectuals."  Were it not for Reagan, Casey, Ollie North, and Admiral Poindexter, Daniel Ortega would still be dictator of Nicaragua.

    On each issue of most-lasting importance, Reagan was right and his "intellectual" critics were wrong.  How could that be?  Could it be their supposedly greater intellect was simply too small to grasp his vision?

    As Yogi Berra would say, are we now experiencing "deja vu all over again" as the "intellectuals" mock Bush, deride his intellect, and impugn his motives in the war on terror?  Remember at the commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the "intellectuals" confidently predicted failure since the brutal Soviet Union had met its Waterloo trying to subdue Afghanistan?  Remember at the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the "intellectuals" were predicting a worldwide uprising of Moslem nations?  Remember their predictions of many thousands of American casualties?  Remember their predictions that we would be unable to prevent Saddam Hussein from destroying the oil wells as he destroyed the Kuwaiti wells before being driving from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War?  Remember their predictions that he would commence a general Middle-East war by launching Scud missiles against Israel?  

--Jim Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.

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