"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Dear God!  I'd almost forgotten.

It was twenty-five years ago today when President Ronald Reagan issued that challenge to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, in a speech by the Brandenburg Gate on 12 Jun 1987.

That obscenity went up in 1961, and lasted until November 1989.

Twenty-eight years (twenty-six of them seeing all too many people making excuses for the damned thing until Reagan had the gall to treat it exactly as what it was) until it was finally destroyed. Although it stood for two more years, his speech almost certainly put the first crack in it.

He had a knack for speaking plainly in spite of an attitude from professionbal diplomats that "you cannot DO that" (especially his reference to the Soviet Union as "an evil empire").

Can you imagine any of that from the current occupant of the White House,  President Barack Obama?

Hell! He couldn't even be bothered to interrupt his golf games and fund raisers to help the union people in Wisconsin who had done so much to help his election.

Now, I am personally delighted at the outcome of the Wisconsin recall vote, but Obama's action there (or lack of) speaks volumes about the gulf between him and Reagan.

Right now, I miss almost everyone who preceded this disaster into the White House, and truly hope to God that this November will see him handed his eviction notice.

Remembering what we once had does not make me feel charitable towards this pathetic excuse of a politician at all.

Yup! This IS a vent.
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