Books, Arts & Manners: Mindsets

As I watched CBS’s half-hour special on the death of Brezhnev, I felt that for once I was getting close to the heart of American liberalism. The program wasn’t “pro-Soviet”; it made no attempt to glamorize the Soviet Union or even to portray Andropov as a closet liberal. Dan Rather was evidently trying hard to tell it straight, and Bill Moyers was nowhere to be seen.

One clip showed Ronald Reagan at his first presidential press conference, saying that there was bound to be friction between the two superpowers as long as the Soviets reserved to themselves the right to lie and cheat. Then there was another clip of Reagan at his recent press conference discussing Soviet efforts to infiltrate the nuclearfreeze movement. A CBS correspondent remarked that this showed Reagan still had the same “mindset.” Hasn’t changed a bit.

JS

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Joseph Sobran

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As I watched CBS’s half-hour special on the death of Brezhnev, I felt that for once I was getting close to the heart of American liberalism. The program wasn’t “pro-Soviet”; it made no attempt to glamorize the Soviet Union or even to portray Andropov as a closet liberal. Dan Rather was evidently trying hard to tell it straight, and Bill Moyers was nowhere to be seen.

One clip showed Ronald Reagan at his first presidential press conference, saying that there was bound to be friction between the two superpowers as long as the Soviets reserved to themselves the right to lie and cheat. Then there was another clip of Reagan at his recent press conference discussing Soviet efforts to infiltrate the nuclearfreeze movement. A CBS correspondent remarked that this showed Reagan still had the same “mindset.” Hasn’t changed a bit.