On NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, Putin was a big topic… from the program transcript, David Gregory:
David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker wrote a piece about Vladimir Putin, and he framed it this way, he writes, “Putin, obviously, is no democrat. Not remotely. He is not interested in the contemporary requirements of human rights. He is not interested in empowering a real legislature or ceding true independence to the courts.
“Democracy is not his interest. Stability and development—those are his themes, first and last. And Putin regards any and all attempts from the West, from human-rights organizations, and from the press to call him to account on nearly any issue as acts of anti-Russian self-righteousness and hypocrisy.”
When I heard this I thought about 2 others Vs, both Victors… one Ukrainian (Yanukovych), the other Hungarian (Orban)… go read the quote again and substitute one of their names for Putin and then you’ll see why these guys lean the way they do.