Back in the days of the Soviet Union, there were two main Russian newspapers: Pravda ("Truth"), which was the official organ of the Communist Party, and Izvestiya ("News"), which was the official organ of the government.
These ironic names elicited a popular saying: "In Pravda there is no news, and in Izvestiya there is no truth."
Both of these publications still exist, though there are two versions of Pravda: one is still the Communist Party organ, and the other is just a Russian news website.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article in the The New York Times arguing against an American strike on Syria to avenge gas attacks on Syrian civilians, Putin articulated many of the same arguments that most Americans already believed. Though Putin's article was obviously slanted, it was relatively tame, stating many obvious truths, and even co-opted conservative Republican language, ending with, "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."
John McCain apparently saw Putin's article as a direct slap in the face, as it completely gutted every argument McCain had made for attacking Syria. McCain complained bitterly about the Times letting Putin speak to the American people, saying that Russian citizens don't have the right to criticize Putin in their own country.
So a Russian website took McCain up on that, and his article has now appeared in Pravda.ru. McCain's column ripped Putin a new one. Where Putin's article was a reasoned argument against American intervention in Syria and a call for peaceful decommissioning of Syria's weapons of mass destruction, McCain's article was a petty, personal diatribe against Putin. It had nothing to do with Syria, and made no case whatsoever for an American strike against Assad. McCain had to personally attack Putin because the Russian president dared criticize McCain's entire ethos of attacking any country that he feels like.
In the end, the publication of McCain's article showed that his main argument was false: people can criticize Putin in Russia. McCain only made himself sound like a maniacal blowhard, compared to Putin's smooth arguments calling for peace and reasoned cooperation. Which is bad, because many of McCain's criticisms of Russia are dead on. His pettiness discredits himself and the arguments he is trying to make.
And it turns out McCain published his article in the wrong Pravda: it appeared on the website Pravda.ru, not the Communist Party's Pravda. The editor of the Communist daily called Pravda.ru "Oklahoma City Pravda." Not that it really matters, because the Communist Party no longer controls the Russian government: Putin's party is called United Russia, and holds more than 50% of the seats in the Duma. It's basically a collection of plutocrats bent on self-enrichment, rather than Communist ideologues who use the Party apparatus for self-enrichment. A subtle, yet important, difference.
What we have here is another example of John McCain's overweaning egomania. The only reason McCain was ever considered a "maverick" is that he has always felt the need to exact revenge from anyone he felt wronged him, even erstwhile political allies. For example, George Bush unfairly trashed McCain in the presidential primaries in 2000, so McCain got his revenge by cosponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.
And how seriously did McCain take the whole Syria debate in the first place? Apparently, not very: he was playing poker on his iPhone during the Foreign Relations committee meeting on Syria.
All this shows that the American people really got it right when they rejected John McCain in 2008. This guy is egotistical, unbalanced and monomaniacally bent on attacking any country that crosses him. As president McCain would have gotten us back into Iraq, and he would have started three more wars in Libya, Iran and Syria. In short, he is the last guy you would want to have the nuclear football.
At this point, even die-hard Republicans have to agree that we almost literally dodged a bullet when Obama beat McCain in 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment