Commentary
A recent column by National Review editor Rich Lowry reminded me of a recurrent theme in Jean-Francois Revel’s “How Democracies Perish,” a brilliant, scathing attack on journalists and academics who were squishy soft on the communists at the height of the Cold War.
What I found particularly delicious about Revel’s attacks on progressive intellectuals of his time was the relentless sarcasm that laced his prose. In the original French edition, Revel describes bitingly how Western elites would treat the conflicting statements of communists and their opponents, including victims of Soviet persecution, in what we were made to believe was an equally critical manner….