V-Grams

V-Gram 35

January 10, 1997


Speaker Vladimir of the House

Last Wednesday night, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno produced a truly memorable moment. The guest was Sam Donaldson, the date - let us fix it in our minds - January 8th, 1997. For me, it will be easy to retain: It was on that day that I arrived in the United States. The year was 1959 but, in terms of any similarity with today's America, it might as well have been 1759.

Mr. Donaldson, now co-anchor of ABC-TV's This Week with David Brinkley, spoke to us about the newly re-elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, third-in-line to the Presidency of the United States. "Newt Gingrich is like Lenin," he explained. "The only difference is, Lenin shot everybody. Newt only shoots Democrats." A slip of the tongue, you might say? Sam went on. "After Lenin had shot all his enemies," Mr. Donaldson said, "he continued to shoot their relatives. Newt is like that."

At last count, Lenin's revolution produced an aggregate of some 100 million dead. If Sam Donaldson was invoking the comparison as a joke, it would be a sign of questionable taste. But, dreadful as the suspicion might be, I believe he was serious.