by JAY NORDLINGER
May 28, 2016 @JAYNORDLINGER
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are involved in something of a bromance. Putin has praised Trump; Trump has praised him back. “I’ve always felt fine about Putin,” says Trump. No doubt. That is one statement out of Trump you can trust. It was pointed out to Trump that Putin has killed people who have dared challenge him. Trump answered, “I think our country does plenty of killing also.” This is the moral equivalence — a false moral equivalence — that Republicans always decried. Indeed, it is one of the reasons I rejected the Left, long ago, when I was in college. Now the GOP, of course, is nominating this view. For president.
Garry Kasparov is of a completely different cast of mind. He is the great chess champion, as you know, and the great champion of freedom, human rights, and democracy. Ronald Reagan meant the world to him, and to many others behind the Iron Curtain. Kasparov is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, based in New York. Earlier this week, he was at the Oslo Freedom Forum, in Norway. I sat down with him there for a podcast, a Q&A:
