PHOTO ESSAY: THE BLEAK AND BLAND STORE FRONTS THAT CAPTURE THE GRIM REALITY OF LIFE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN IN THE 1980s. In the 1980s, as Reason noted, Democrat house stenographer Arthur Schlesinger returned from a trip to Moscow in promptly went full Duranty:

“I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street — more of almost everything,” he said, adding his contempt for “those in the U.S. who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink.” (By the way, Schlesinger, who has spent his life in praise of JFK’s adventures in Vietnam and Cuba but foamed at the mouth over every other American military action of the Cold War, proves Isaiah Berlin wrong: In addition to foxes and hedgehogs, there are also chameleons.)

Well, that’s one way to describe him. (Needless to say, never go full Duranty.)