Michael McFaul writes a good essay, in the form of a book review, on the state of democratization--a fanciful project--in Russia and Putin’s policies. The continuity between the old regime and the new is pretty clear. Here is another piece by McFaul in the December isssue of the Weekly Standard on developments in Ukraine and Russian policy.
Secretary of State Rice met with her Russian counterpart in Ankara yesterday and told him that Moscow’s crackdown on dissent was making Russian-American relations "more difficult," a State Department official said. The state department official also said "Ms. Rice made the expression of American concerns more central to the discussion than previous American officials had with the Russians in the past." Bush will meet with Putin later this month in Bratislava.
Here at home, we have pre-emptive crackdowns on dissent.
Bring on the rationalizations!!
Oh, boy, here it is! Finally, the story about liberals being locked up and tortured in George W. Bush’s America that we’ve all been waiting for! We always knew he was just as bad as Hitler!
Now, let’s click on that link! Boy, this is gonna be good. Here it is... "a city commissioner, a liberal radio producer, a deputy Democratic campaign manager and a number of university professors were among more than 40 area residents who were barred from attending the Bush event."
Oh. But that’s just the first step! Yeah, they’re building the concentration camps even as we speak!
So, Pestis, is the idea that if you respond with a lot of smarmy sarcasm to the facts presented that you’ve effectively shown the concerns to be illegitimate? I said nothing about camps or torture, and I didn’t compare Bush to Hitler. Also, do I detect an inference that anything less than concentration camps does not qualify as a "crackdown on dissent"?? If Putin did/does prevent citizens who disagree with him from attending events where he appears or speaks, would you think it’s problematic?