Here’s a quick reminder: Russian President Vladimir Putin is a villain.
He oppresses his people. He has political opponents and journalists murdered. He jails dissidents. This is not a man of whom lovers of liberty should speak fondly.
Sadly, a weird undercurrent of pro-Putin sentiment has surfaced in recent years in certain corners of the right. This started before the election, but it seems President-elect Trump’s victory has further emboldened Putin fans to come out of the woodwork.
The fawning admiration from a subset on the right has led to charges that the Right is overall sweet on Russia’s president.
Doubly unfortunate is the fact that certain groups on the right are not helping to dissuade people from the notion that the GOP and conservatives admire Putin.
The Heritage Foundation, for example, had this to say on social media Friday morning: “Vladimir Putin respects two things: strength and consistency In the last eight years, President Obama has shown neither.”
There’s a way to criticize President Obama’s foreign policy inconsistencies, and his lack of resolve in following through on issued warnings (hello, Syrian “red line”), without also sounding like an admirer of Russia’s president, which is sort of what Heritage just did.
The conservative think tank could have said, “The president has failed to project strength and consistency, both of which are necessary to take on Putin.”
Simple.
The next U.S. entity to muddy the waters is “Fox & Friends.” The morning cable news show tweeted Friday, “Putin vows not to stoop to Obama’s level after U.S. kicks out Russian intel operatives.”
“Stoop to Obama’s level”? Huh? The president is finally taking action after Russia’s repeated cyberattacks on U.S. entities. Responding by ousting Russian assets from U.S. soil constitutes some form of “stooping”?
Look, if people or groups don’t want to be seen as fawning over Putin, and many surely don’t, then they must be more careful with their language. Don’t play into that perception with careless tweets or offhand comments.
Unless, of course, these people and groups actually do sort of admire Putin. In which case, gross.
