For the first time in five years, the conventional media prefers Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. President Barack Obama. Has Vladimir sent American journalists cases of Russian vodka? Or are they fed up with Barack?
It’s amusing to imagine Putin shipping cases of Russian vodka to American journalists with a note:
Dearest American Journalists:
Please put me on the cover of your influential news magazines, such as TIME Magazine, and also please publish my op-ed in one of your most distinguished newspapers, The New York Times. I will be truly grateful. My public image has never been stellar. Americans know that I have imprisoned innocent businessmen like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and that my own countrymen frequently mock me for my failure to lead and my obsession with posing, tracking Polar Bears or exposing my abs. My public image needs help and since you don’t care for Obama’s performance on Syria, this would be a great time to help me out. Thanks in advance!
Russian President Vladimir Putin
P.S. I hope you enjoy the enclosed case of fine Russian vodka.
P.P.S. Enclosed are a few high-resolution pictures of me at my best angle.
Clearly, Putin did not send this letter, or the Vodka. But something is going on. Why is it that TIME is publishing op-ed after op-ed from Sen. Rand Paul and meanwhile making Obama out to be a goon? Here is an excerpt from a recent article from TIME’s Joe Klein on Obama’s handling of Syria:
“He willingly jumped into a bear trap of his own creation. In the process, he has damaged his presidency and weakened the nation’s standing in the world.”
Klein goes on to say that Americans would be willing to tolerate force, but not force that is “unleashed wantonly, without a precise plan or purpose.”
As I wrote last week, our President and his Secretary of State John Kerry were pressuring us to go to war with Syria to cover for Obama’s red-line ultimatum. They assured us not to worry, this would not be “war in the classic sense.” At the time, we did not have definitive evidence that Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. Our president was asking us to go into a war that could escalate into WWIII when our defense budget was cut, our troops were suffering from PTSD and needed a break from fighting in the Middle East—all to protect his ego. You don’t go to war over ego.
There are three reasons why we are not still debating entering Syria so as to protect Obama’s god-like self-image. First, we the American people spoke up against sending our troops into another endless war. Secondly, a reporter asked a good question which gave Kerry an opportunity to “burp” out a route to avoid war. Third, Putin is an opportunistic leader and he jumped on Kerry’s proposal in order to improve his public image and protect his ally, Syria.
Why did The New York Times publish an editorial from Putin where he questioned American exceptionalism? Why did TIME Magazine put Putin on the cover of its international versions and a college football player on its domestic version of a recent issue? It’s not because Putin was sending their writers and editors cases of Russian vodka. It’s most likely because Americans, including the conventional media professionals are fed up with a president who has shown himself to be willing to launch us into WWIII and needlessly loses scores of American lives all to protect his ego.
Whether conservatives, liberals, moderates or libertarians, we all feel the same way: We want our president to lead, lay out a plan and not rely on “burps” from his Secretary of State or corrupt leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin to determine our foreign policy. Right now, it looks like Putin is running the show and that’s embarrassing not to mention appalling given his immoral style of governing Russia.
Go ahead. Pour me a glass of vodka, Putin. On the rocks, please. But don’t expect Americans to buy into the notion that you are a leader. You are an opportunist. We know it. We just want our own president to take the lead and if it means embarrassing him into leadership by propping you up temporarily, then that’s what we’ll do. And we also think you should live up to all the positive American media coverage you are getting by releasing Mikhail Khodorkovsky.