And David Bowie Was The First Man In Space

If one ever had any doubt that the media are morons, consider that Reuters thinks Bruce Springsteen brought down the Berlin Wall:

When Bruce Springsteen spoke out against the Berlin Wall at the biggest concert in East German history in 1988, no one in the crowd of 160,000 had the faintest idea that the symbol of the Cold War would soon be history. But now — 20 years after the American rock star went behind the Iron Curtain — organizers, historians and people who witnessed it say his message came at a critical juncture in German history in the run-up to the Wall’s collapse.

The piece is an idiotic exercise in over-earnest juvenile logic that insults the East Germans who for years struggled to end communist rule of their 'country', often dying in attempts to escape.

While puffing up the meagre contribution of a mere pop star, the writer also attempts to discount the efforts of those in the West who actually did the job of ending the Cold War, most notably US President Ronald Reagan, who worked with British PM Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II to cajole, chide and twist the arms of the Soviets.

The author even tries to paint Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as the hero of the piece, citing Gorbachev's 'perestroika' as the prime mover towards the fall of the Soviet empire.

Nonsense - it was Reagan who put the pressure on Gorbachev but allowed the Soviet president enough diplomatic room to back down and still save face.



The Reuters piece is historical revisionism of which the Soviet Socialists would have been proud, airbrushing people out of history to present a dangerous distortion of the truth.

Skewering analysis at Newsbusters

-- Nick