Posted on 08/14/2009 5:00:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
It is summer vacation in Russia and Kremlin muscle man Vladimir Putin is flexing once again. Internet photos show the ripped Premier riding shirtless on horseback. Hes projecting anything but the image that Vice President Joe Biden recently gave us of a Russia in decline. Biden tried to say that Russias population decline-- Russian women average nine abortions in their lifetimes-- is a sign of trouble ahead for the former superpower. (Bidens bid to fund Planned Parenthoods 350,000 annual U.S. abortions would seem a bizarre response to what he says is killing off Russias future.)
Bidens stumbling over Russia policy came after President Obama very publicly showed disdain for the real strongman in the Kremlin. While in Moscow, the President played up to Putins puppet, Dmitri Medvedev. And that misstep occurred after Secretary of State apologized, in effect, for George W. Bushs Russia policies, but couldnt find her reset button.
Bush famously met with Putin back in 2001 and reported he had looked into the Russians eyes and could see his soul. He said Vlad was a good man. Bush took a lot of heat, mostly from his own base. Conservatives quoted former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovskys comments at the time of the Bush-Putin meeting. I have looked into many eyes of KGB agents and I did not see good men.
To Bushs credit, however, he quickly and quietly reassessed his first impressions and put the Russia-U.S. relationship on a more realistic basis. Bush and Obama could do no better than to remember Ronald Reagans famous words: Trust, but verify.
Its not just his biceps that Putin is flexing. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, there are Russian nuclear submarines off our Eastern Seaboard. We may think we won the Cold War. Reagan is credited-- even by liberals like Bill Clinton-- for winning the Cold War. But nobody has asked Putin about this.
The Russians are sending their Akula class subs to within 12 miles of our shores. There is increased Russian military activity in the Caribbean. The Russians are sending naval vessels on goodwill tours of defiantly Communist Cuba and doing joint sea trials with Hugo Chavezs navy.
Americans are waking up to the negative impact of President Obamas economic and health care plans. They are worried, they tell pollsters, about the looming deficits. Bush deficits were unconscionably large-- but Obamas deficits will be four times as great.
It may take longer for Americans to see the consequences of a U.S. foreign policy of weakness and apology. But we are being watched. Russia is not sleeping. Putin is preparing. And those submarines are shadowing our coasts. Just remember, in Russian, akula means shark.
Um... not exactly in my definition of “muscled”.
Putin in NOT “ripped.” He’s in excellent shape for a man in his fifties. But NOT “ripped.”
Silvio Berlusconi was facing fresh embarrassment last night after audio tapes surfaced of a supposed dalliance with a high-end prostitute at his Rome residence. “I’m going to take a shower too. If you finish before me, wait for me on the big bed,” a man purported to be the Italian Prime Minister can be heard saying. “Which bed? Putin’s?” queries his companion, Patrizia D’Addario. “Oh, how cute, the one with the curtains.”
Putin — ripped?? muscled?? Hardly. Only in his dreams (and maybe, the reporter’s).
Muscled? What a joke, I barely work out and I’m far more “ripped” than that, and I’m 52.
At 52... you’re just getting ripe! *chuckle*
:’) As Elaine Benes once said, “fake. fake. fake. fake.”
Internet photos show the ripped Premier riding shirtless on horseback.I'm waiting patiently for the internet phots which show him on a slab, sporting a new Y-incision.
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