"A bitter retreat into the politics of envy"

By Wesley Pruden

""The difference between the Soviet Union and the United States," an elderly Russian woman said to me over a cup of rough black tea on my first visit to Moscow a quarter of a century ago, "is envy. If a Russian sees a new car parked at his neighbor's house, he says, 'I'm going to find out how he got it and turn him in.'

"But if an American sees a new car parked in front of his neighbor's house, he says, 'My, that is such a beautiful car. I'm going ask my neighbor how to get one of those for myself.'"

Alas, that was then, and this is now. The defining difference between liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, tea sipper and addict to castor oil, is envy. Bitter, unyielding and unforgiving envy."