• The abortion non-issue
• A new kind of surge
• Congrats Cap'n!
• Game over, man!
• Regarding Education
• Trivia Question of the Day
• What Right to Privacy?
• John McCain is 72 years old! [laughter, applause]
• Bug Braaaaaaaaaains!
• Sarah Palin
• Reich's advice to Democrats
• Women's Lib
• On Barak Obama and Joe Biden
• Late Night Punchline Imbalance: the details undermine the headline
• Better questions about climate change

• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005

« Cool / Not Cool | Main | Constitutional Representation »

'Anti-Soviet' and 'Intellectuals' Appear in Same Sentence in Washington Post; Devil Buys Snow Shovel

I'm a few days late getting to this Washington Post story (registration required) published on January 27th:

The Plot Thickens
A New Book Promises an Intriguing Twist to the Epic Tale of 'Doctor Zhivago'

Into one of the most sordid episodes in Russian literary history, the Soviets' persecution of Boris Pasternak, author of "Doctor Zhivago," a Russian historian has injected a belated piece of intrigue: the CIA as covert financier of a Russian-language edition of the epic novel.

The piece that caught my eye and elicited an immediate burst of laughter was this snippet:

[...] A CIA role in printing a Russian-language edition [of Doctor Zhivago] has been rumored for years. [Ivan] Tolstoy offers the first detailed account of what would rank as perhaps the crowning episode of a long cultural Cold War, in which the [CIA] secretly financed literary magazines and seminars in Europe in an effort to cultivate anti-Soviet sentiment among intellectuals.

Ha! Thank goodness for the CIA and their secretly financed literary magazines! Lord knows that the tens of millions of deaths at the hands of Stalin's Communist regime are insufficient to rouse the 'anti-Soviet sentiment among intellectuals.' One has to wonder if this isn't the Washington Post's worldview: irrational hate mongering by the U.S. government against a Soviet Union that went through some 'ups and downs' but was overall just swell.

A question answerable only by an intellectual.