Political Quotes

“In that same article he went on to criticize President Reagan for failing to understand the significance of the Soviet's economic plight. He said: Reagan has frequently stressed the intramural weakness in the Soviet empire. Yet, strangely, he has not factored those weaknesses into his calculation of Soviet strength. In Time magazine on September 25, 1989, Mr. Talbott wrote that ``The Soviet economy, all but bankrupt when Gorbachev came into office nearly 5 years ago, has actually deteriorated.'' He was right onto the trend. In Time magazine's ``Man of the Decade'' edition on January 1, 1990, Strobe Talbott continued to write about the decaying Soviet economy and the West's misrepresentation of it. I close with this passage: Gorbachev is admitting that much of what has been perceived by the outside world as his country's collective ``discipline'' is actually an ossifying, demoralizing, brutalizing system of institutionalized inefficiency. Yet in the West, the era of stagnation was seen as one of Soviet ascendancy--even, in some key and dangerous respects, of Soviet supremacy. Mr. President, a man with such a clear record of contrarian views, many of which have proved accurate in the end on the central issue of American diplomacy surely deserves our confidence.”