The American disease

We have a terminal one, according to this man:

"Americans have a severe disease — worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex," he said. "You want an American style-democracy here. That will not work."

It's too bad Mr. Gorbachev is still a sore loser, but seeing the East Germans knocking down the wall with pick axes had to leave a mark.

But his remarks almost suggest he's looking at fifteen years without a successful democracy as some kind of macabre vindication. Perhaps Russia is finally coming around to his vision of democracy--just like the old days without the gulags? Hard to say.

But this is hardly rocket science. Societies either live free and govern themselves or they don't. Russia is slipping closer to an autocracy every day and everyone knows it, including the Russian masses.

So explains the uptick in rhetoric as the G8 Summit approaches. Today Putin took a shot at Cheney by mentioning his hunting mishap, this in retaliation for the Veep's recent quip that Putin was using his energy resources as "tools of intimidation or blackmail", among other things. Surely this made Putin a few new fans within the American left.

But were Cheney's comments really off the mark, or did they just hit a nerve? Perhaps Russia is afraid our Iraq operation will eventually expose some things they'd rather not. Perhaps it's just national insecurity in an increasingly lawless world, or perhaps the tiger never really changed its stripes.

Gorbachev certainly won't tell us, but that's ok with the MSM, who largely continue to live in a bubble regarding the man, evidenced by this comment:

Mikhail Gorbachev is generally regarded as the man who broke down the "iron curtain" that separated the communist world from the West and thawed the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

As if Gorby would have done his reform thing had Hubert Humphrey been president. But his remark, "Please don't put even more obstacles in our way. Do you really think you are smarter than we are?", was rather telling. It suggests our real disease might be one of naivete rather than arrogance.