The rough and tumble he has been through is brutal compared to his prior opponents like marsh-mellow Chimpanzee Bush who rode in on his father's coat tails and brain.

He is going to be around for a while.

Now you're gonna make me watch it again...

It's on my top ten list...

Though, so is Big Trouble in Little China, at #1... so my taste may be suspect

But I will add, he is definitely showing much more nationalistic authoritarian leanings..just 6 years
ago, one example..some gays were coming out...feeling somewhat safe to do so. Not great mind you,
that has changed dramatically. They have a solid reason to be afraid for their lives, Russian school
textbooks have all kinds of stereotypical garbage about gays to keep perpetuating paranoia.

Pussy Riot does not, unfortunately, have a great deal of Russian public support against Putin...the guy loves dictators
and he has the assistance of the Orthodox church.

Conservative religious nationalist. Holy Mother Russia. It he had more wherewithal he'd be dangerous. But he is reality based. He didn't get where he is by being careless. And he was the only person that was ready for what happened. They aren't going to move him until he wants to be moved. At least the way things stand.

I'd find the butt covering (Putin is crazy) amusing, if it weren't so pernicious. When have we heard that idea before? He's got to be crazy, or they have to explain why they didn't see this coming. (Like they ever see anything but the reflection of their own delusions of grandeur.)

I was discussing the possibilities with some people here when he started making his move. They should have stuck with the agreement Yanukovich signed, they could have kept Crimea ("We've lost Crimea!&quot , Panetta knows.

It was really classic they way the Neolibs pre-empted the popular revolt. It is quite correct that Putin fears that spreading, although I don't think he is vulnerable like Yanukovich, he has plenty of popular support, and taking Crimea plays well at the moment. Edit: but he HAD to do something, or would be the guy that "lost Ukraine".

They still lack humility, our "leaders", and they underestimated him because of it. Like Feinstein with the NSA. What a Rube.

He hasn't changed much since he was first elected. All that's changed is where he's turned his attention, that's all.

Bush II was an idiot in his appraisal of Putin. Obama's "reset" merited a wan chuckle of derision.

Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy, and a larger enemy than your original enemy. (Thus making your enemy your friend, for the time being, until the other, larger, common enemy is destroyed.)

but thankfully, they never used it as an excuse to invade us or nuke us.

We don't seem to show the same restraint.

and have been trying to eat his lunch the whole time he's been in power, and he's been able to avoid responding with force most of the time.

If Russia came over and did the equivalent of us invading Iraq and Afghanistan, our government would go apeshit and start world war III.

He has mostly waited for us to slip on our own banana peels, which we have obligingly done.

that produce really good results (edit: for Ukraine). That example would do more to harm Putin than anything else in our power.

They will do anything to undo the results.

Make sure the resulting government succeeds, and prospers. That is propaganda with a punch, so to speak.

Edit: after WWII we seemed to know this, now we seem to have forgotten it.

which all historians seem to agree led to the sequel.

As you know, I think they are delusional. But then we've been this way for a while. Why stop now? It's working so well.

Seeing those simpering fools up there on the TV: Cheney, Cruz, and Baker. History will not be kind or respectful.

I mean I concur as far as that goes. I'd have to watch him a lot more than I have or want to before I'd want to pontificate on his psyche. So I just look at it externally in terms of tactics and strategy based on what I can see and read. The noise level is astounding, you must admit, dueling narratives, none without their flaws.

So I'd agree this is a bad, risky business for everybody, and I don't think he is going to back down, but that's about it as far as predictions. It depends on what is done.

I think the half-ass confrontational-"can't we all just get along" approach is most unlikely to succeed. It's hard to say how much of that is window dressing. He needs some cheese to get out of this, and if it was up to me we'd explore that.

A couple links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11334098

http://watchingamerica.com/News/234014/imperial-putin/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/moscows-weaknesses-explain-crimea-crisis-not-washingtons/article17341736/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-susan-brooks-thistlethwaite/putins-holy-russia-goes-to-war_b_4886776.html

There is another one I remember, I'm looking for it.

This is good:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/03/kelly-mcparland-putin-catches-western-intelligence-napping-once-again/

Amazing. Wow, just wow.

He is basically the worst of Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya rolled into one.....he is also desperate to rebuild the Russian Empire.

Old school nationalist. Someone around here who knows Russian said the Russian version of "United Russia", the name of his party, translates better to something like "Unique" or "Special", if I'm remembering correctly. The person did say that you really had to stretch to find a context where the word meant "United", but that sounds less nationalistic and all that in English.
Anyways, this whole thing is so blown up it's not even funny.
Ukraine, first of all, is just doing what weak nations have always done to try and wriggle out from strong neighbors: find a strong one somewhere else to back them up as a counterweight. Scotland for years allied itself with France vs England; Portugal used Britain vs Spain, and in the present day Cuba used the old USSR against the US, and is now using both Russia and Venezuela, as well as forging alliances throughout Latin America.
Old story.
Russia, meantime, is the strong one trying to dominate. These days, the whole dynamic gets frozen by the fact of nukes. The shadow of them is what keeps Marines off of Cuba's shores, and it keeps NATO from fighting over Crimea.
Which doesn't make what Russia's doing in Crimea right, in any way, anymore than it would be right for us to send Marines to Cuba. Some folks around here would oppose the latter, but seem to be just fine with the former. I find that incomprehensible, hypocritical, and morally bankrupt.

as that has certainly never stopped the U.S. from forging ties that bind. No, I suspect the thing that really
sticks in the craw of the folks who own our 'news' agencies and find themselves at odds with Putin is his
nationalizing of his country's resources (oil/gas for one) and consequent booting out or jailing of its western leaning capitalist
oligarchs. He and Chavez seemed to have been on the same page and our msm has vilified them both.