McCain Says Putin Is Undermining Russian Democracy

Bakutoday ^ | 2-5-2006 | RFE/RL

[Stellar Dendrite]

U.S. Senator John McCain has strongly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for what he characterized as the undermining of democracy in Russia and abroad.

McCain made his comments in a speech at an international security conference in the German city of Munich.

The U.S. senator, a presidential candidate in 2000, said Russia appears to be pursuing autocracy both at home and abroad. He also said he seriously questioned whether the member states of the G-8 group of industrialized nations should attend a G-8 summit scheduled to be hosted by Russia in St. Petersburg later this year.

McCain also criticized Moscow for using its natural gas resources as a means of punishing democratic Ukraine and Georgia while providing cut-rate gas supplies to a dictatorship in Belarus.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Another:

McCain Calls for G8 Boycott of Russia
http://www.woai.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=D1346127-441A-484D-BEBC-764B44801D6D

[Stellar Dendrite]

ping

[GSlob]

McCain gets this one right.

[Paleo Conservative]

A stopped clock moment.

[SteveMcKing]

How presidential.

But appearances are quite transparent these days.

[Stellar Dendrite]

"A stopped clock moment."

exactly..

[struwwelpeter]

I believe that the true father of Russian democracy, that giant of cogitation, died in an insane asylum, muttering something about some diamonds in a parlor chair.

[downtownconservative]

McPain can be a-okay sometimes. Here, he nails it. Putin is anything but a friend and ally to the USA. He is a self-serving-snake of a ex-KGB dude.

[Stellar Dendrite]

ping to the soviets

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

McCain gets this one right.

McCain must be drinking Texas ranch water.

[GSlob]

Good translation, although "giant of thought" would be shorter, hence stylistically better. But realistically, it is a reversion to the historical norm - there wasn't that much to undermine, and what little was there, obviously had not put out sufficiently deep roots [and thus was easy to undermine] - bananas grow very poorly in some latitudes.
"Lichno ya i rabolepen i zhestok,
I pokuda takova moya priroda,
Demokratiya-iskusstvennyi tsvetok,
Ne zhivuchij bez okhrany i ukhoda"
Igor Guberman
[Personally I am both servile and cruel,
And as long as this remains my nature,
Democracy is [or remains] an exotic plant,
Not survivable without care and being guarded]
And as for being guarded - it is from such people, not for them.

[television is just wrong]

Whatever that man says...

I still don't like that rhino....

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

Putin is a bitter communist who still hasn't gotten over the defeat of the Soviet Union.

[struwwelpeter]

Ya gosudarstvo vizhu statuey:
Muzhchina v bronze, polniy vlastnosti;
Pod figovym listochkom spryatan
OGROMNIY organ bezopasnosti.

;-)

[Tyche]

McCain stating the obvious. John, any comments on China????

[HiTech RedNeck]

well duh

[HiTech RedNeck]

say that in english?

[GSlob]

""A stopped clock moment."
exactly.."
Well, it gives some hope. Spiro, spera. Maybe it is a sign of a recovery from a long illness.

[struwwelpeter]

Something like:
"I see my government as a statue
A man in bronze, full of imperiousness
Underneath his little fig leaf is hidden
The HUGE security organ."

My reply to a line of GSlob's Guberman. Guberman had a funny rebuttal to the 19th-century Slavic nationalist, Fyodor Tyuchev, who is famous for his poem: "You can't understand Russia with you mind."

Guberman's position: "It's time M---F--- to understand Russia!"

;-)