Lament for a Nation

Ottowa Citizen ^ | Sept 30, 2009 | David Warren

[Cicero]

There is nothing new under the sun: and I mean, nothing. It is a point brought home to us with increasing force by the expansion of the Internet. Conceive of an "original idea." Now, select two or more keywords suggested by it. Use them as search terms, and you will soon find that, say, 438,000 other people have entertained said "original idea," and a dozen are currently blogging on it.

Before beginning today's column, my search terms were "Gorbachev" and "Obama."

Yes: a lot of people have entertained the idea, that Mikhail Gorbachev was to the late great Soviet Union, what Barack Obama is to the surviving United States -- the leader who reforms so many things so quickly that his country suddenly disappears. One recalls the speed with which the first Soviet head of state to be born after the October Revolution became its last head of state. It took him about three years: just less than the time of one U.S. presidential term. (Though he had already taken three years to warm up, as General Secretary of the Communist Party.)

It is, today, a little-known fact that Gorbachev did not bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union, on purpose.

[Cicero]

Worth reading the whole thing. Although I'm not sure that Obama isn't doing it on purpose.

[Red Badger]

Very small children, the mad, and certain extinct primitive tribes, have shared in this belief system, but only the fully college-educated liberal has the vocabulary to make it sound plausible.

That's The Zero and his myrmidons in a nutshell..............

[traumer]

It’s spelled OTTAWA

[Cicero]

Yes, that was the sentence that sprang out for me when I read it.