Putin Us On

Just before the start of the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump, a longtime friend, confidante and sucker of Vladimir Putin, said that Putin's effort to impose a pax Russiana on Ukraine by amassing troops along Ukraine's borders with Russia and Belarus was an act of "genius."  When the fighting broke out and numerous cities were mercilessly bombed by the Russian army, Trump spoke with a great deal of rue, saying that Putin had "changed."  In fact, he hadn't.

In fairness to Trump (I . . . can't believe I just wrote that!), he's not the only one to realize that Putin is not the nice guy he was once thought to be.  When Putin was democratically elected to succeed Boris Yeltsin as president of post-Soviet Russia in 2000, he came across as a young, dynamic, Westernized leader who would bring Russia into the twenty-first century.  He welcomed free-market capitalism and Western popular culture.  And he put on quite a charm offensive.  He took George Walker Bush for a ride in his classic Volga sedan when our forty-third President held a summit with him, and Bush later said he believe he "saw his soul" by looking into his eyes.  At a concert, Putin took to the stage and sang "Blueberry Hill" - in English - to the delight of an audience that included Western movie stars such as Gerard Depardieu, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.  He even got to meet Paul McCartney (below) when the former Beatle played Red Square in Moscow in May 2003.  He told Macca that he enjoyed listening to the Beatles because their music "was very popular, like a breath of fresh air, a window into the outside world."  At the concert, Putin took his seat just like any other Beatles fan.

Yes, many Westerners actually liked this guy.

He fooled everyone.  Everyone, that is, except Balts, Poles, Baltic-Americans, Polish-Americans, and Mitt Romney.  It was Romney, after all, who said back in 2012 that Putin was the greatest threat to world peace while running or President against incumbent Barack Obama.  Democrats laughed - just as they laughed at Ronald Reagan's Russophobic statements in the early eighties (except for Democrats with last names like Jonaitis or Malinowski).  Who has the last laugh now?  Well, Romney, who's suddenly being talked about as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate if the GOP comes to its senses and stops waiting for Trump.  Romney is also one of President Biden's strongest supporters on the Ukraine crisis from the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate.

Putin proved that P.T. Barnum was right, but if Trump ends up still supporting Putin after all of this, he'll only prove that, once in awhile you'll get a sucker dumb enough to fall for the same scam a second time.  Ironically, Trump is counting on his supporters to be stupid enough to fall for his scam . . . a third time.

And as to how Paul McCartney could have fallen for Putin's shtick . . . well, Macca was married to Heather Mills at the time, so you have to take that into account.