Reagan vs Obama?

Kevin Williamson writes in today's National Review Online edition,

News flash: This is not 1982, and Obama is not Reagan.

The important difference is this: There was a good reason for the Volcker-Reagan recession: defeating inflation. American voters may not be terribly economically sophisticated, but they sure as heck did notice when inflation went from 13.5 percent to 3.2 percent — in two years.

This is a salient point - Ronald Reagan was trying to reduce the damage done by the previous Administration's ham=handed and inept economic policies. And it worked - as Williamson notes, inflation dropped drastically in only two years. Mission accomplished!

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be clear to our friends on the Left side of the political spectrum. One of the commenters writes,

Reagan was an incredible deficit spender, I don't think you can distinguish between Obama and Reagan on that factor.

Unless this is a joke, this comment displays a distressing lack of understanding both of history and of international relations. Yes, Reagan did do some large defiicit spending. But, as was the case with the economic policies, there was a reason. A good one. Reagan believed that the Cold War needed to end and he did not think (correctly, as it turned out) that the Soviet Union could keep pace with the US if the Cold War turned into a competition between economic methodology. By spending freely on the US military, he forced the Soviets into an arms race they simply could not win. And his full-throated defense of liberty and freedom gave heart to the millions of enslaved Eastern Europeans. Essentially, Ronald Reagan put his money where his mouth was and bet that the US could win an economic showdown with the Soviet Union. And he was right.

In 1980, when Reagan came into office, the world was resigned to the grim menace of Soviet tanks and proxy wars. Reagan ended that, at least as far as the Soviets were concerned. Proxy wars will go on forever, but the specter of Russian tanks crossing into Western Europe is gone. Ronald Reagan performed two vital actions during his eaight years in office - he won the Cold War (though the Soviet Union did not finally collapse until his successor was in office) and he crushed the inflation caused by Jimmy Carter and his de-regulation put the US on a solid economic course that has lasted by and large until the current Administration.

I don't see how you can compare Reagan and Obama either, but not for the reasons our commenter friend listed. I don't see how you can compare actions taken with a firm goal in mind - a goal that was achieved in both cases largely by the time Reagan left office - to Obama's destructive spending. If Obama's goal is to make the entire country dependent on government and to make the political class into feudal masters, then I guess he is succeeding. But to me there is a fundamental difference between spending to defeat an enemy and spending to make government more powerful. Reagan was all about smaller government. Obama? Not so much.

NY Times: Soviet Spy is a Hero

Does the New York Times believe that anything detrimental to the well-being of the United States is to be celebrated? It would seem so. Whether the Times is betraying secret programs designed to protect America from Islamic terrorists or leading the charge for full access to American courts for alien enemies, their actions all seem intended to weaken America and strengthen America's enemies. This belief is on full display today with their loving portrayal of the life of Soviet spy George Koval, a trained Soviet agent who was responsible for the USSR's successful theft of the atomic bomb. As the Times writes,

He had all-American cover: born in Iowa, college in Manhattan, Army buddies with whom he played baseball.

George Koval also had a secret. During World War II, he was a top Soviet spy, code named Delmar and trained by Stalin’s ruthless bureau of military intelligence.

Atomic spies are old stuff. But historians say Dr. Koval, who died in his 90s last year in Moscow and whose name is just coming to light publicly, was probably one of the most important spies of the 20th century.

George Koval was a spy for the Soviet Union, and yet the Times never condemns Koval for his betrayal of the United States- a country that gave his parents refuge, and allowed him to gain a career as a highly regarded nuclear physicist. Instead, the Times writes of Koval,

Dr. Koval died on Jan. 31, 2006, according to Russian accounts. The cause was not made public. By American reckoning, he would have been 92, though the Kremlin’s statement put his age at 94 and some Russian news reports put it at 93.

Posthumously, Dr. Koval was made a Hero of the Russian Federation, the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a Russian citizen. The Kremlin statement cited “his courage and heroism while carrying out special missions.”

Dr. Kramish surmised that he was “the biggest” of the atomic spies. “You don’t get a medal from the president of Russia for nothing,” he said.

The comment that Koval was "the biggest of the atomic spies" is as critical as the Times can allow itself to get. There is no discussion in the article of how badly Koval's betrayal hurt the United States, and the Times does not even consider the negative effects of Koval's spying. They only state that

By 1934, Dr. Koval was in Moscow, excelling in difficult studies at the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology. Upon graduating with honors, he was recruited and trained by the G.R.U. and was sent back to the United States for nearly a decade of scientific espionage, from roughly 1940 to 1948.

How he communicated with his controllers is unknown, as is what specifically he gave the Soviets in terms of atomic secrets. However, it is clear that Moscow mastered the atom very quickly compared with all subsequent nuclear powers.

In addition to its failure to present Koval's spying in a negative light, the Times mainly presents Koval as the Soviet Union would have wished- a Hero. I can only surmise that, for the Times, anything that hurts America is to be celebrated.

In contrast, consider the Times' reporting of America's recent Congressional Medal of Honor winner, First Sergeant Paul Smith, who received a much less gushing story when reports of his heroism reached the Times. Smith, who is the first Medal of Honor winner since 1993 (the medal is extremely difficult to earn and most are present, like Smith's, posthumously), gave his life protecting his fellow Americans and was responsible for the defeat of a force of elite Iraqi Republican Guards in defense of the Baghdad Airport. Yet the Times's report of Smith's Medal of Honor- the highest award for gallantry an American can receive- contained fewer references to heroism than did the story on Koval. Yet Smith gave his life defending his country and his fellow Americans. Koval did his best to help an unfriendly power defeat his adopted country and lived a comfortable life in the USSR as a professor and soccer fan. Who's the real hero? To the New York Times, it is apparently Koval. I disagree. To me, it is Sergeant Smith- Koval is nothing more than one more traitor.

Hat tip to NewsBusters reader Denney Abraham. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Media Ignore Poland Anniversary In Diana Deluge

The world's media are busy mourning the death of the Princess Diana ten years ago. While they are mourning the fact that they lost a ready-made newsmaker who shared many of their goals, they have forgotten to remember the anniversary of a far more important event than the death of a minor celebrity, famed only for her beauty.

As I was reminded by Lead and Gold, today is the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Polish communist government agreeing to the demands of striking shipyard workers. This surrender by the Communists of Poland presaged the breaking loose of the satellite nations of the SOviet Union's Iron Curtain and led directly to the fall of the U.S.S.R. As Lead and Gold writes,

The strike marked the beginning of the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are, rightly, given the greatest share of credit for winning the Cold War. But Lech Walesa and John Paul II played indispensable roles.

...

In the long twilight struggle against Stalinism, the workers of Poland were the first light of sunrise.

Yes, they were. But you won't see a murmur of this immensely important anniversary in the mainstream media. So far, there has been not a single mention of this anniversary on the sites of CNN, ABC News, MSNBC, CBS News, Yahoo News or the New York Times. For journalists, it is an major inconvenience that those darn Poles had to begin the march toward freedom from the chattering classes preferred political system. So they continue to blather about Diana's death and try to ignore remembering things far more important. Crosss-posted on NewsBusters.

Hat tip to Instapundit.