Gorby & The Wall

Amidst all the gloom over the monstrous killings at Ford Hood, it’s hard to get too excited over anything else in this country or abroad.

But the fall of the Berlin Wall was truly one of the most wonderful days in modern history. It was worth a 20th birthday party on Monday.

Ironically, the current German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was one of the thousands of deliriously happy East Germans who poured through the gates that magical night.

She and the other dignitaries said a lot at Monday’s celebration. One of the things she said was that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev deserved special praise for his role in bringing about the end of the hated wall.

"You made this possible — you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect," she said of him -- and to him, since he was there as well.

Fine. It was a big party, and everybody was in a good mood. Anybody who wasn’t named Josef Stalin probably would get something nice said about him.

But no one should ever forget that Gorby never wanted to end the Soviet Union and communism. He wanted to “perfect” it, to make it more humane.

Which of course is impossible, because that whole crappy system was built on denying people real liberty.

As soon as the mental and physical bonds were loosened a bit, East Europeans and Russians were not satisfied with a little freedom, a little justice, a little prosperity.

They understandably wanted it all, and that’s why the Evil Empire crumbled soon after the wall came tumbling down.

So say what you want about Gorby and the other socialist “reformers.” They were much better than the thugs they succeeded, but don’t put them on a pedestal.

In the end, they were simply useful idiots who helped get us from there to here.