Down With Putin

Re Putin Says U.S. Meddling in Election by Clifford J. Levy in today's NY Times:

It is becoming ever more clear that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin suffers from severe paranoia. Normally, I would not give a rat's behind about the mental state of a foreign leader, but since Russia has thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at the US, I do care.

The time has come for the Russian people to take a cold, hard look at their leader. Just because Russia has made great strides economically under Putin does not mean he should lead Russia indefinitely. Hitler also made economic progress for Germany in the 1930s, and look how that episode turned out.

Putin brings to mind the image of an insecure man who struts around like a comic-book character. Yet, his worship by ordinary Russians seems to be a reversion to the cult of personality which prevailed when Stalin ruled Russia with an iron fist. (That episode also did not turn out well for Russia.)

Quote from the article:

"Mr. Putin contended that the election monitors, who are deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, had canceled their plans to monitor the parliamentary balloting because of pressure from the State Department in Washington....

"“According to information we have, it was again done at the recommendation of the U.S. State Department and we will take this into account in our inter-state relations with this country,” he said. “Their goal is the delegitimization of the elections. But they will not achieve even this goal.”"

Somebody should explain to the former KGB operative the benefits of quitting while you are ahead.