Poor Condoleezza

Recently it was discovered that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in a very delicate and vulnerable psychological state. Perhaps even more delicate than that of “Poor Liza.”* She views the nomination of Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the Russian presidency as a “mockery of the electoral process.” Of course, she wouldn’t drown herself like Karamzin’s heroine did, but Condoleezza is seriously upset and will be for a long time. Maybe even until 2024.

What made the trembling soul of the pianist and Russian expert so angry? What version of Putin’s nomination wouldn’t she view as “mockery”? The thing is that there is no such version. She does not really care how it’s done. She just doesn’t like the idea that Putin is running for a third term. It would be worth noting that she is not the only one who doesn’t like it.

There is a general consensus in the American establishment towards Putin. Neither Democrat Joe Biden nor Republican John McCain is horrified, but they are surely on the edge of a nervous breakdown. They expect Putin to “crack down” and oppress everything other than his own way of thinking, creating something like mass repression. They also foresee the Russian fate being similar to that of Egypt, Libya and the rest from the Arab Spring. The question is why? More specifically, who are they trying to scare?

It seems to me that anti-Putin hysteria is one of the subtle forms of mockery of the American electoral process. Let me explain.

The U.S presidential elections are less than a year off and the Republican primaries are underway. Texas Governor Rick Perry already managed to screw up when he forgot one of his three theses during the public debates. Literally. Oops!

But in general, the U.S. presidential debates are so-so, without any truly important discussions.

In the meantime, the outlook on the U.S. economic is quite hazy. The Occupy Wall Street movement, on the other hand, is rather straightforward. And next November, when the economy comes out of this fog and “takes the knife out of the pocket,” everyone will be hard hit, both Republicans and Democrats.

As a result of this situation, there is a need to prepare the average American for the fact that it is not the right time to be involved in internal conflict. America as a whole — a united America — has bigger fish to fry than conquering Wall Street. There is no more USSR, the loser of the Cold War, but something even scarier: Putin’s Russia, which is more dangerous than all of the Saddams, Assads and Ahmadinejads put together. What could be worse?

A New York Post journalist, Ralph Peters, already answered this question last year amazingly simply and clearly: “What Vladimir Putin did, he took over this broken country with an utterly broken military, a foreign policy in disarray, and like him or not — and I don’t like him — he has really turned Russia around astonishingly. And, sad to say, I do not see a presidential candidate in either American party who seems to me that he or she could play at this level of diplomacy and strategy.”

That is the real deal. Condoleezza Rice, with her tender and fragile soul, would sign under each word quoted above. But if it were made more public, she would laugh cruelly over the American electoral process, which is full of choices but favors quantity over quality. As a result, at the end of the day everyone is left with no choice but Obama.

Poor Condoleezza. That’s how it is.

*Editor’s Note: “Poor Liza” is a reference to a novel by Nikolay Karamzin.