Personal Dork Assistant

Lion in Winter

Interview with Lee Kuan Yew in Time Asia. Nice for once to see a world leader with a clue. The enlightened dictator can be surprisingly effective, and it's been the ideal governing philosophy in the Confucian tradition. Human rights are overrated anyway. Plus, anyone who can talk smack to Deng Xiao Ping (and live to tell about it) is the Real Deal in my book.

I said, "You spent all this time to convince me why we should fight the Russian bear. Let me tell you that my neighbors want me to join them to fight you, you're the man who's giving us trouble. All this communist insurgency and your broadcasts urging them on and so on." He screwed up his eyes, peered at me, and asked, "What do you want me to do?" I said, "Stop it." One young man telling one old grizzly, guerrilla fighter: "Stop it." He said, "Give me time." Eighteen months later he stopped it.

Pretty brave stuff for 1978.