Posted by
Defend America on Saturday, February 06, 2010 7:48:36 PM
A Eulogy for Ukraine's Orange Revolution
February 5, 2010 7:01 PM
Many of us have fond memories of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution.
In fact, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were all cheering
the throngs of pro-democracy Ukrainians who threw out the nations
entrenched post-Soviet oligarchy. And who could forget the faces of the
revolution's two dynamic leaders -- presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, his face disfigured from attempted assassination by dioxin poisoning, and his fiery sidekick Yulia Tymoshenko, the blonde-braided orator?
These were the two who were supposed to lead Ukraine to a glorious,
democratic future -- and none of us would have guessed that they could
fall so far, so fast. Just five short years later, Ukraine has arrived
at it's first post-revolution presidential election, and it now appears
the Tymoshenko will not only lose her bid to succeed Yuschchenko as
president, but she will be defeated by the very man the revolution
defeated -- the election-rigging former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych. Furthermore, she will do so without the
endorsement of the now hugely unpopular Yushchenko. The former
compatriots have now been at each other's throats for years, with the
stridently anti-Russian Yushchenko bristling at Tymoshenko's decision
to adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward relations with Moscow.
They have blamed each other for the recession, they have blamed each
other for the two occasions that Russia shut off natural gas to
Ukraine, and Yushchenko has even accused Tymoshenko of high treason for
not being vocally opposed to Russias war with Georgia.
In a final blow, President Yushchenko has instructed his few
remaining supporters to check the "none of the above" box in Sunday's
runoff.
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/eulogy-ukraines-orange-revolution