BY TONY BLANKLEY
Reprinted from Townhall.com

As we approach the festive season — the elongated, enchanting month from Thanksgiving through Christmas to New Years — my mind has been drifting through various memorable past holidays. Some have been personal — the last one with my father before he died. But one that stands out for historic reasons was Christmas 1991.

It was precisely on Dec. 25, 1991 — 20 years ago next month — that the Soviet Union expired. Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his office, and the godless Soviet Union formally ended its existence. On that Christmas Day — of all days –mankind was given the gift of deliverance from the half-century-long threat of nuclear annihilation. Mankind had never been more than one human misjudgment away from the unthinkable. It seemed a miracle that for all the human blundering, the crass politics of the world, the trillions of dollars spent on nuclear weapons — we had come out the other side untouched by the long-dreaded nuclear flame.

But after expressing my heartfelt gratitude for the deliverance from such an evil, I remember thinking that it was a pity that from then on history and politics would be so boring — not that I was complaining. Continue reading →