Christmas comes early, courtesy of the Washington Post

One of the most critical pieces of the coalition that brought down the Soviet Union was the American people. As the 1970s wore on, Americans became more aware of both the Soviet threat and the nature of the regime (largely through its vicious satellite states) and demanded leaders who would confront Moscow.

Today, while many of the other pieces are in place - an economy showing its true colors (Epoch Times), the exposure of eye-popping and life-risking corruption (Epoch Times), the rise of a more assertive and connected dissident movement (Sound of Hope via Epoch Times), the brutal satellite (BBC), etc. - the American anti-Communist majority still has yet to assert itself.

However, there were signs today that this could change.

Sadly, most of the MSM's "coverage" of the Chinese Communist regime is similar to the nonsense Jaime FlorCuz wrote at CNN (runaway winner for Ignorant Comment of the Day). Yet this week we saw two terrific columns in - of all places - the Washington Post.

The first Post column, by Georgetown Law School Professor James Feineman, focuses specifically on the Communist judicial system, and unlike most columns by Western "experts," this one pulls no punches (emphasis added):

Thirty years ago this week, the epochal Third Plenum of the Eleventh Communist Party began the process of making the Chinese people far freer economically and politically than previously imaginable. Sadly, on this anniversary, the trends set in motion then appear to be reversing -- with ominous implications for China and the global community.

There are very few analysts of any kind willing to be that honest - and that's just the opening paragraph.

Even more heartening, for its own peculiar reasons, is Michael Gerson's column from today's Post. Gerson focuses on the Korean colony, but what makes his column interesting is his domestic political posture. Gerson is one of the very few defenders of President Bush left; he goes after liberal and conservative critics of the outgoing leader. To some extent, there is hardly a better representative of the Republican establishment than he.

On the Bush Administration's North Korea policy, Gerson is unforgiving. Parts of it read like they were lifted right off One Free Korea's page. What really caught my attention (because Bush has faced an avalanche of criticism from within the right and the GOP on North Korea) was Gerson's comments on the CCP:

Also, it should now be clear that our Chinese partners hold significantly different priorities from ours. Chinese diplomats push for greater American concessions and oppose tough economic sanctions because their primary objective is a stable North Korea on their border, not a denuclearized North Korea.

Again such realism about the CCP is rare in Washington these days.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Times, the details on these "significantly different priorities" become quite clear (the CCP has been caught violating UN trade sanctions against its Korean colony, sanctions they voted to enact in the UN Security Council and then refused to honor the same day).

Now, the Times has been generally more anti-Communist than the Post, although never perfectly so. The key, however, is that the American elite - divided on domestic issues into Democrats and Republicans but previously near-unanimous in support of "engagement" - are finally beginning to notice what the American people have known for some time: that the Chinese Communist Party is not the peaceful and reformist institution it claims to be.

This could make it much easier for one (or perhaps even both) of the major political parties to take the anti-Communist mantle as its own. I still believe that whichever one reaches for this flag first will be the majority party in America for at least a generation.

More importantly, we may be seeing the first steps (like those taken in the mid-1970s) to an anti-Communist Administration coming to power and helping the Chinese and Korean peoples free themselves from these egregious tyrannies (or, if you prefer, an Administration coming to realize the need for anti-Communist policies).

The Chinese Communist Party was for many years in a far better position than the Soviets could ever dream of occupying. Over the last few years, however, Hu Jintao has let that advantage slowly erode. Now, the regime is just as ripe for a fall as Brezhnev's USSR was. All that is needed is a democratic world determined contain, isolate, and undermine the regime. The aforementioned Washington Post columns tell us that this day is closer than we previously thought.