Last night, my flight back home from NY was seriously delayed becuase of high winds so I decided to take advantage of my sister and brother-in-law's hospitality and crash at their place before an early flight the next morning.

I had some time to kill, so I went to the Barnes & Noble even though i already had two unfinished books with me. On one of the tables was a new book by Natan Sharansky, who I greatly admire, called The Case For Democracy.

Having started the book, i am glad to know that great minds think alike....

When Natan Sharansky stepped into Condoleezza Rice's West Wing office at 11:15 last Thursday morning, he had no idea the national security advisor would soon be named the next secretary of state. He was just glad to see her holding a copy of his newly published book, The Case for Democracy.

"I'm already half-way through your book," Rice said. "Do you know why I'm reading it?"

Sharansky, a self-effacing man who spent nine years in KGB prisons (often in solitary confinement) before becoming the first political prisoner released by Mikhail Gorbachev, hoped it had to do with his brilliant analysis and polished prose.

Rice smiled. "I'm reading it because the president is reading it, and it's my job to know what the president is thinking."

I remember marching as a young kid with tens of thousands of Jews and the SSSJ (Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry) in Manhattan for the right of refuseniks like Sharansky to be freed from prison. The highlight was always seeing Mayor Koch speak from the podium in Dag Hammerskjold Plaza.

Here's what Sharansky had to say after his meeting with the President...

"I told the president, 'There is a great difference between politicians and dissidents. Politicians are focused on polls and the press. They are constantly making compromises. But dissidents focus on ideas. They have a message burning inside of them. They would stand up for their convictions no matter what the consequences.'

"I told the president, 'In spite of all the polls warning you that talking about spreading democracy in the Middle East might be a losing issue — despite all the critics and the resistance you faced — you kept talking about the importance of free societies and free elections. You kept explaining that democracy is for everybody. You kept saying that only democracy will truly pave the way to peace and security. You, Mr. President, are a dissident among the leaders of the free world.'"

From one of the most famous dissidents of era of the Evil Empire, such is not faint praise.