It may be hurting Russia's international stature, but President for Live Putin's got a real fan club here on FreeRepublic. Strangely, his sins as a KGB man and supporter of Communism and the Gulag are forgiven; he can arm the enemies of peace and Security for the money he can get from it, and be called a staunch enemy of al Qaeda. In the case of Assad, he was arming al Qaeda to kill Americans just a couple of years ago. Putin, President for Life, can sell advanced weapons to the mad mullahs in Iran, and still be praised by some as a great Christian without any cognitive disonance.
What do you find on the Russian border?
Russian soldiers.
No gay pride marches in the Russian army.
A flat tax, no capital gains tax.
Who is the communist?
>>>Strangely, his sins as a KGB man and supporter of Communism and the Gulag are forgiven<<<<
Last time I’ve check, Gulag was dismantled in a period of 1953-1956 and about 90% of Soviet inmate population released at the time.
Maybe, but Putin is still better than Obama.
Putin doesn't support Communism but he understands its corrosive nature from first hand experience. In fact he's been a supporter of free market capitalism for a long time (despite the klepto-capitalist origins of Russia's current system), and has made several significant speeches to that effect on the international stage.
His rhetoric on economics is largely overlooked by the political and chattering classes in the United States, primarily because Putin accurately and unflinchingly lays the blame for the 2008 world financial crisis at the feet of the corrupt and broken American banking/political system, of which "leaders" like McCain and Obama are a mediocre byproduct.
But he’s anti-homo!