TOUCHED TO THE POINT

In 1989 on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had a meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia with a group of Anti-Communists dedicated to ridding their country from Soviet rule. Their leader was Martin Palous, a founder of the Charter 77 democracy movement.

He explained that when he and other Czech intellectuals such as Vaclav Havel formed Charter 77 in 1977, they did so against all hope. “To dream of real freedom for our country was unthinkable,” he said. “The best we could ask is some little bit of light, some small increase of breathing space for us to think and talk more freely.”

Then the world changed: Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. At first, there seemed to be no difference. Czechoslovakia remained completely a colony of the Soviet Union as before, with one of the most repressive Communist governments in all Eastern Europe. While President Reagan had a reputation for being an Anti-Communist, he seemed focused, as best Palous and his friends could tell, on working to resurrect the American economy.

“The moment came for us,” Palous recounted, “when we heard Radio Free Europe broadcast in Czech the speech by President Reagan in which he called the Soviet Union the ‘Evil Empire.’ Luckily, RFE broadcast it several times, because it was hard to hear on our illegal short-wave radios and the signal was mostly jammed by the Soviets.

“This was the moment of hope for us. Finally – finally and at last – the President of the United States”… Palous raised his pointed index finger straight up in the air, then brought it straight down in a sweeping arc to touch the table“… touched to the point. These were the words we had always dreamed we would hear from the leader of the Free World but never had before. We knew in that moment we now had a chance to bring freedom to our country.”

It is in remembrance of Martin Palous’ story that I named my website To The Point. It is our goal to place our finger on the critical points regarding the principal issues of our day. Just as Ronald Reagan provided the inspiration for freedom fighters throughout the Soviet Empire, so he continues to provide inspiration for me and so many others here in America.

This helps to explain the unprecedented outpouring of love, admiration, and mourning by the American people for Ronald Reagan that we have witnessed this week. Other than those on the left whose bitterness and hate have hardened their hearts, for scores of millions of Americans, Ronald Reagan touched something very deep within them. They have come to realize this week that he saw the goodness and decency in their souls, and the goodness and decency in the soul of America.

And like the professional dramatist that he was, his timing was impeccable to the last. There is no one else on the American scene today capable of carrying on the vision of Ronald Reagan’s America other than George W. Bush. President Bush is not inspired by his father’s presidency. He is inspired by Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It’s almost as if Ronald Reagan chose his passing to be timed for maximum support of his grand-successor’s re-election. The Democrats might as well commit political hara-kiri. Come November, they are toast.

This is a good and wonderful thing — for Democrats. A moral sickness has seized control of the Democrat Party, with its soul consumed with bitterness and bile. This is dangerous for our democracy. The basic mechanism of American politics is a strong two-party system. Such a mechanism cannot function properly if one of the two parties becomes unhinged.

Thorough unambiguous defeat on November 2 is the only way for Democrats to cure their moral sickness, to regain their sanity, for a Democrat phoenix to rise from the ashes of spite. Who will emerge to lead Democrats after November I don’t know – but they’ll be new and they won’t be the Clintons. Kiss Terry McAwful goodbye as party chairman. The new party leaders will not want to remain stuck in the poisonous past, neither that of the Clintons’ nor that of Kerry-Dean-Daschle-Kennedy-Michael Moore venom.

The emotional earthquake that has occurred in the American people this week will reverberate for a long time to come. The most immediate aftershock will be a surge of increased affection and support for Ronald Reagan’s heir. It is irrelevant to argue that President Bush is not the equal of President Reagan – for no one is, no one can be, no one will be. President Bush will be re-elected, and by a landslide, not because voters have illusions of him being another Reagan, but from a clear understanding that he will continue the Reagan legacy.

The following aftershock will be the emergence of Patriotic Democrats – a loyal opposition – in the upcoming 109th Congress. Republicans will not have monopoly power in Congress forever – at some point in the foreseeable future they will lose either or both the House and the Senate. When that happens, we want a Patriotic Democrat Party in place, not what we are burdened with now.

Ronald Reagan never wavered in his hope for America. What we have seen this week is an infusion of that hope into America’s veins. You can have more confidence and assurance in America’s future now – because Ronald Reagan has once again touched America to the point.

[Note: Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech is often thought to be his address to the British House of Commons on June 8, 1982. While such a reference to the Soviet Union was in the speech’s original draft, it was excised by the State Department and changed to a reference to “totalitarian evil” in general. Nine months later, Reagan’s speechwriters were able to slip the reference under the State Department’s nose in a speech given to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, on March 8, 1983. To see Reagan’s genius at work, I encourage you to read House of Commons speech in full here and the Evangelicals speech here. Martin Palous today is Czech Ambassador to the United States.]