Russia plans day of mourning for Yeltsin - Yahoo! News

Russia plans a day of mourning and drinking for Boris Yeltsin

Some great achievers are glorious throughout their careers, like Winston Churchill and Shakespeare and Babe Ruth. Even average people can still have glorious years, like George Custer and Harper Lee and Brady Anderson. Boris Yeltsin had neither. Perhaps he could have, but he seemed to be drunk about 90% of his waking hours, so instead of a year or a career, he had only one moment. But what a moment it was - one of the greatest anyone ever had. For me, it is the second most memorable global event of my life, beaten only by Kennedy's assassination. A completely unexceptional man turned into a combination of Lincoln and Churchill before our eyes. "After Communist hard-liners tried to overthrow Gorbachev and roll back democratic reforms in August 1991, Yeltsin stood atop a tank to rally resistance to the coup. He spearheaded the peaceful end of the Soviet state on Dec. 25 of that year." The most astounding thing about it was that Yeltsin had no use for Gorbachev, but he loved his country and knew what he had to do, so he took possession of his moment ...