Russian Roulette

Couple more items of interest in analyzing the Russia-Georgia conflict, and our unwitting role in the whole thing -- including, of course, the blustery, mavericky incompetence of Poor Ol' Straight Talk. First this piece from the NY Review of Books, laying out the case for how we ineptly encouraged Saakashvili to lay his dick on the table, thinking we had his back. Sorry Misha, but maybe understanding what exactly it means when Bush is two or three times as popular in your country as he is here would be a clue in how that was going to go.

Then there's CNN's interview with The Man himself, Ol' Pooty-Poot. Putin is at once authoritative and discursive, even (for him) almost playing around, as the reporter goes to wind it up and Putin responds, "We could go on. I am in no hurry." This, as we've forgotten, is how people who are in charge of large countries are supposed to sound: clear, coherent, able to speak extemporaneously and at length about actual ideas, rather than endlessly babbled, fractured boilerplate and circular "in other words" handjobs.

While he's at it, Putin explains what he thinks of Faux Noise:

Let's recall, for example, the interview with that 12-year-old girl and her aunt, who, as I understand, live in the United States and who witnessed the events in South Ossetia. The interviewer at one of the leading channels, Fox News, was interrupting her all the time. All the time, he interrupted her. As soon as he didn't like what she was saying, he started to interrupt her, he coughed, wheezed and screeched. All that remained for him to do was to soil his pants, in such a graphic way as to stop them. That's the only thing he didn't do, but, figuratively speaking, he was in that kind of state. Well, is that an honest and objective way to give information? Is that the way to inform the people of your own country? No, that is disinformation.

Funny that a guy with his own, erm, tempestuous relationship with journamalists would have the nerve to point the finger, but point taken. Even he gets that Fox is a bad joke.

I don't think anyone's under the illusion that Putin's a "good" guy per se, but you have to have at least a grudging respect for him. Here's a guy who was handed an enormous basket case of a country that neither the West nor Yeltsin gave a shit about. Yeltsin was a thief and a drunk and a cheap thug, who let the country and its army fall apart in chaos and poverty, while he and his family enriched themselves.

And Putin turned that around, with his own thuggish nastiness, murdering journalists and imprisoning political opponents. But he cleaned up the nightmarishly undisciplined army and now even once-secretive outposts such as Vladivostok are thriving. No doubt he has wet his beak, but he seems content to enrich his cronies and consolidate power instead. He has been extremely effective in prioritizing Russian interests on the world stage, which -- get this -- is what he's supposed to do. I think many of us seriously think that guys like Putin are supposed to check with us first before making a move. Does your neighbor ask your permission before fucking his wife?

Of course, the reason Russia is now thriving is because of oil prices, which is our doing. Straight Talk McCain rhetorically asks what Saddam Hussein would have done with $110-120 oil. A look as Putin's record might give him a hint, albeit a more rational, less Stalinist one. But none of this happened in a vacuum, and our Serious Leaders keep pretending we had no role in any of it. Forget McCain not being fit to be president, the man's not fit to be a senator at this point, if he can't figure this one out.