The American Spectator

Today on the main site:

• Leaving Parents Behind, by RiShawn Biddle

• Walls Can Fall, by Darrell Issa

• Obamanomics’ Backlash Stimulus, by Ralph R. Reiland

• The GOP’s Civil “Civil” War, by G. Tracy Mehan, III

• The Old Horse Home, by Bill Croke

• Plus more…

Comment of the day:

Reader Mark Pettifor on The Spirit of 1989:

Mr. Bandow,

Something that everyone seems to be missing in all the nostalgia and reflecting back on that historic time is that human nature doesn’t change much.

When I see statements like “Communist Party boss Erich Honecker wanted to shoot them; rather than commit mass murder, the Politburo dumped Honecker” and “Within a year the ugly, brutish regime, which had distinguished itself by shooting desperate people seeking to escape to freedom, disappeared”, the question that comes to mind is this: Are you saying that the Kremlin killers at some point just changed their minds, and decided that well, heck, we’re gonna lose this ideological war (not to mention the guns and bullets war with weapons and all that other stuff that we made to back up our ideology and give it teeth) so we might as well cut our losses and become happy little capitalists?

If we really won not only the Cold War, but the ideological struggle between freedom and the totalitarian ideologies in the East, then why hasn’t anyone who was part of the group of strategists who plotted for a generation the destruction of the West come forward to admit that they were wrong, the West was right, freedom is their new god, and, oh, regarding those hundreds of millions of people we killed, well, sorry ‘bout that, can we be friends now?

Nope. I’m not buying it. Russia (and China) are just as much a threat now as they were then, only it’s different kind of threat. When your enemy fakes death, and you believe it, you’re in twice the danger as you were before.

Soviet defector Golitsyn told us all of this in his book “New Lies For Old.” If only people had paid attention to what he wrote.

By the way, he predicted that the Communists would tear down the Berlin Wall 5 years before it happened. Makes one want to go read what else he had to say, doesn’t it?

What to watch for:

• Moscow hopes to conclude arms talks today.

• The Indonesian Foreign Minister is heading to Europe to meet Troika European ministers, the foreign ministers of Portugal and Germany.

• International leaders will be in Berlin today.

• Over 44% of the House and Congress are millionaires.

• The fall of the Berlin wall in the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• David Frum on why November 9 is too momentous to remember in full.

• Why the Berlin Wall fell.

• Obama and Netanyahu are meeting today.

Friday’s best: