Reportedly, it took Mr. Sharansky’s personal intercession to get Mr. Bush to come to Prague against the advice of the State Department, a depressing indication of where things stand with what used to be called “the freedom agenda.” ~Bret Stephens

What’s actually depressing is the idea that Mr. Bush would choose to listen to Sharansky rather than to the advice of the State Department.  The people at State probably wanted to save him the embarrassment of giving the speech that he gave.  They were probably trying to avoid occasions where Mr. Bush would publicly chide American allies.  It’s not as if our government is overwhelmed with expressions of goodwill and cooperation these days that it can afford to alienate still more foreign governments. 

It’s strange how interventionists very selectively pick the dissidents whom they lionise and promote.  Solzhenitsyn is also a great Soviet dissident, but I suspect that Mr. Stephens and his crowd would not be terribly interested in having the President defer to him when deciding how to manage the foreign affairs of the United States government.