Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host, Andrew Hee.

And today, we're going to talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall,

which may seem like an odd editorial choice on my part, given that everyone else

this week is talking about the presidential inauguration.

I thought about doing that, contrasting Biden's speech with his predecessors from four years

ago and then I thought you know I would honestly rather just talk about the

Berlin Wall so we're going to do that instead.

Although, I do have a point to all of it

about the Berlin Wall and inauguration,

which I think would be very apropos

for our time period right now,

so bear with me. It's all going to come together.

An iron curtain has descended across the continent. The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of my favorite stories. If I were a camp council, this is the tale I would regale youngsters with around a campfire.

Chances are you already know about the Berlin Wall, but kind of as an epilogue to the

Soviet Union. You've seen footage of ecstatic Germans tearing a concrete

ice sore to pieces as if rendering asunder the bones of a dead Soviet monster.

That's all true. But that's not the story.

That's the conclusion.

The story of the Berlin Wall

is magnificent.

It's filled with things I love. Spineless and competent bureaucrats

...