Walesa's Eulogy

It should go without saying that Lech Walesa was a hero of mine - which long predated my becoming a conservative, and in the end he was a key factor in my conversion.

His memoria to Reagan in Opinion Journal last week resonates with the current debate as well.

The piece - which you need to read - ends with this observation:

I have often been asked in the United States to sign the poster that many Americans consider very significant. Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date--June 4, 1989--of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S.

But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland. It is always so touching when people bring this poster up to me to autograph it. They have cherished it for so many years and it has become the emblem of the battle that we all fought together.

As I say repeatedly, we owe so much to all those who supported us. Perhaps in the early years, we didn't express enough gratitude. We were so busy introducing all the necessary economic and political reforms in our reborn country. Yet President Ronald Reagan must have realized what remarkable changes he brought to Poland, and indeed the rest of the world. And I hope he felt gratified. He should have.

So what does this say about Reagan, and for that matter our media?

Awash in their wonkish fascination with the minutiae of the present, they always get the big picture wrong. Mark Steyn commented on the phenomenon last week; in this case about the Reagan funeral:

Hundreds of thousands of Americans waited quietly in line in California and then in Washington to say goodbye to their president. Meanwhile, back on the air, the big networks struggled to find the tone. On the day itself, the assembled media grandees agreed that he was an amiable fellow with a big smile who told a good joke. If you'd tuned in 10 minutes late to ''Larry King Live,'' you'd have assumed he was doing one of his special tributes to some half-forgotten comic or TV host from the '50s that no one had very much to say about.

They got Poland - indeed, all of Eastern Europe - just as wrong.

I remember in 1992, barely a year after the Berlin Wall fell, when the fledgeling governments of Poland and the rest of the former Warsaw Pact (how many people remember that organization at all?) were not even a year old, after forty years of Nazi and Communist domination. Tom Brokaw went on the air with a story about the teething pains the Polish economy was suffering as it switched from a command economy to a market system. As Poland privatized its long-nationalized, sclerotic industries, masses of workers were laid off. Prices were in turmoil, things were very difficult.

Brokaw finished the piece: "It looks as if Poland's experiment with the free market is a failure".

13 years later, of course, we know Brokaw is wrong. Poland is thriving (and might be thriving more if they weren't so eager to tie themselves to the EU). Their democracy is fascinatingly lively - and fairly solid. They are America's staunchest ally in Europe today.

Question: Who predicted this? Brokaw? Schlesinger? Strobe Talbott? Or Reagan?

I don't wanna keep seeing the same hands here.

Posted by Mitch at June 14, 2004 05:33 AM