On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:01:04 -0500, "fishbarrel"
wrote:


I strongly urge you to listen to this very informative program in its
entirety:

http://archive.wgnradio.com:8080/ram...o/klehr031212m
r.rm


Useful idiot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In political jargon, the term "useful idiot" was used during the Cold
War by certain anticommunists to describe communists in western
countries (particularly in the United States). The implication of the
insult was that the communist in question was naïve, and that he or
she was being cynically used by the Soviet Union, thus unwittingly
betraying his or her home country.

It is also believed to have been coined by Vladimir Lenin to describe
western non-Communist reporters and travellers who would endorse the
Soviet Union and its policies in the West. Lenin never wrote it in any
published document, but it was a commonly used phrase within Communist
circles long before anti-Communists used it. Whether or not Lenin
actually coined the phrase cannot be proven, but it certainly stems
from Communists.

In the United States, the term has today been appropriated as a
pejorative used by political conservatives against political liberals.
The tone of usage implies that the target of this sobriquet is
ignorant of the facts to the extent that they end up unwittingly
advancing an adverse cause that they might not otherwise support.

The term gained increased use after the publication of conservative
columnist Mona Charen's 2004 book Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It
Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot"