Those readers of a certain vintage will remember how the left vilified Ronald Reagan as a trigger happy cowboy who was, they insisted, the greatest threat to the world's existence ever to serve as a head of state. His resolve in refusing to bend to the Soviets' attempt to achieve military dominance in Europe, and his refusal to back down from his plan to place medium range Pershing missiles in Europe within striking distance of Moscow, drove the left into apoplexy.
So it is that those of us who thought his determination to gain peace through strength was the correct course and that his plan to drive the Soviet Union to collapse was absolutely necessary read this article at Breitbart.com with particular satisfaction:
Opponents of Poland's former communist regime reportedly want to pay a posthumous homage to US President Ronald Reagan by erecting his statue in the place of a Soviet-era monument.
In an open letter to the mayor of the southwestern city of Katowice, the former anti-regime activists said that the staunchly anti-communist Reagan had been a "symbol of liberty," the Polish news agency PAP reported.
As a result, they said, he deserved to become the centrepiece of the city's Freedom Square, replacing a monument to the Soviet troops who drove out the occupying Nazis in 1945.
They also said that they wanted the site to be rebaptised "Ronald Reagan Freedom Square."
There are already separate plans to erect a statue in memory of Reagan in the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, which would be paid-for from private funds.
Reagan, who dubbed the Soviet Union an "evil empire," is widely credited by Poles with having driven communism to the wall.
The conservative Republican made fighting communism the cornerstone of his 1980-1988 presidency, and backed Poland's Solidarity trade union after it went underground when the regime declared martial law in 1981.
I was reminded the other day that while Reagan was working to dismantle the "evil empire," Sen. Ted Kennedy was trying to arrange a meeting with Soviet premier Yuri Andropov to discuss ways that Reagan could be undermined. Some things never change. One of them is the complete unwillingness of the left to stand up to any tyranny that is not allied to the United States.
Anyway, maybe a couple of decades from now Iraqis will be erecting statues of George Bush in Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. Wouldn't that just drive the Bush-haters completely bonkers.
RLC
