The new presidential model
by digby
I wrote about how the wingnuts love Vladimir Putin for his manly virtues thus explaining why Trump was so happy to have his endorsement. They are similar in more ways than one:
A huge hall filled with almost a thousand journalists, his formal “year-ender” December 17 news conference, broadcast live on all the major Russian TV networks and websites.
A question about Turkey, and why it shot down a Russian warplane in November.
President Putin was still furious. With a sneer and a snort, he let loose a volley of trash-talk.
“If anyone in the Turkish leadership decided to lick the Americans in a certain place — I don’t know if they acted correctly or not — I don’t know whether the Americans need that.”
Laughs, and even applause from some of the Russian reporters. Foreign journalists looked stunned.
What Putin left out was the real ending of that Russian expression: “lick someone’s a*s.” But every Russian in the room knew what he meant.
The public first heard it in September 1999, when Putin was an unknown prime minister. Russia was hit with several deadly terrorist bombings of apartment buildings. Vowing revenge, Putin didn’t hold back: “We’re going to pursue the terrorists everywhere,” he said. “That means, you’ll excuse me, we’ll catch them in the toilet, we’ll wipe them out in the sh*t house, finally.”
That tough talk shocked many Russians. They’d never heard anything like that from a leader before. But it also boosted their spirits; a tough, vigorous leader had their back and would fight to protect them.
A few months later, the ailing president, Boris Yeltsin, stepped aside and Vladimir Putin took the reins as Russian president.
But he didn’t change his locker room talk.
At a summit meeting in 2002, a foreign journalist asked the president whether Russia was repressing human rights in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, where most people are Muslim.
“If you’re really ready to become an Islamic radical and you’re ready to have yourself circumcised, I invite you to Moscow,” he shot back. “We have a multi-faith country and we have experts in that. I’ll recommend doing the operation so that nothing grows back.”
Male circumcision is practiced more by Muslims than any other religious group.
The first translator was left speechless and sputtered an attempt at explaining what Putin had in mind. “Uh…uh…uh, uh come to Moscow…” Another translator jumped in: “If you want to do a circumcision….You are welcome…and everyone is tolerated in Moscow.” No translation was provided regarding anything not growing back.
Putin’s sense of humor often has an ironic twist to it. “If a grandmother had certain sexual indicators, she would be a grandfather,” he said in June of 2006, answering a question about sanctions against Iran.
Michele Berdy, who writes a column on the Russian language for The Moscow Times newspaper, has followed Putin’s rhetorical style for years. She thinks “it’s a way of being like the guy next door.”
It appears that Russia has so far won the profane authoritarian clown race up until now. But I’d say we’re closing fast.
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014
And now he’s talking about schlongs. He’s got a way to go before he’s in Putin’s league but I think he can do it. We need some victories, goddamnit!
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
