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Russia Bashing Is a Dead EndFor example, Fox News Channel, often a proponent of high-testosterone American responses to almost any international crisis, kept poking fun at Putin’s personal machismo by cycling film of him flipping opponents at a judo session with a photo of him hunting shirtless with a high-powered rifle. Other more mainstream media scolded Putin for his recent "in-your-face" op-ed in the New York Times, with special indignation in response to the Russian president’s criticism of U.S. "exceptionalism." More universally, pundits either stated or implied that the Russian leader loved to intentionally tweak the Americans out of pique or that he couldn’t be trusted.
This outpouring of American ire was astounding in that it came as Russia effectively pressured Syria, its only remaining Middle Eastern ally, to promise to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy, by 2014, all of its sizable chemical weapons stockpile.
When someone is trying to help you, it is usually considered bad form, in addition to being stupid, to kick sand in the person’s face. Why does the US media pick on Russia? Although Putin has certainly made Russia more authoritarian, the US government regularly supports despots as long as they play ball with American aims – for example, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt as they abuse and repress their own people. Yet hypocritically, the United States criticizes the Russians for supporting the authoritarian Syrian regime. The real rub is that the current Russian leader, unlike his predecessor, the drunk buffoon Boris Yeltsin, refuses to be an American lackey and endure post-Cold War US insults. Perhaps the American media should spend less time haughtily defending American exceptionalism and more time realizing that just because some countries disagree with American policy on certain issues, they are not necessarily out to get the United States.
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