When Gorbachev speaks, you listen

This is the man who was able to bring down the Iron Curtain that shielded the Soviet Union from the rest of the world and facilitated East-West relations to the point of thawing the Cold War and allowing for the USSR's dominion on the east to collapse.

As a result, all eastern Europe's Communist regimes fell, one by one, and democracy spread. He even lost his job, shortly after the fall of Communism in Russia, because of a coup.

Without Gorbachev, the world would be a dramatically different place. Arguably a worse place.

Recently, first Cheney, then Bush, accused Putin, the current Russian President, of stifling democracy in his own country. They publicly attacked him right when we need him most on our side against Iran and North Korea. How stupid is that? Do this people have any idea of how things work in the real world?

So now, Gorbachev commented on the situation. And what he said isn't pretty for Bush:

"We have made some mistakes," he said, referring to recent attacks on Russia's democracy. "So what? Please don't put even more obstacles in our way. Do you really think you are smarter than we are?"

The former general secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party accused Americans of arrogance and trying to impose their way of life on other nations.

"Americans have a severe disease -- worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex," he said. "You want an American style-democracy here. That will not work."
[...]
The former Soviet leader had severe criticism for two of the most important people in the Bush administration: Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"They are just hawks protecting the interests of the military -- shallow people," he said.

January 2009 won't be here soon enough, I'm afraid.