The World Has a Putin Problem

When Ronald Reagan made his little joke about “The bombing of Russia will commence in 5 minutes,” the world was not amused.  However, as much as I think Reagan was a horrible president and probably not a very good human being, it turned out it was just a bad joke.  A really bad, stupid, oafish joke

No joke – He is a threat to world peace

which could have had serious consequences, sure.  A joke like a gun owner coming out of the shed and pointing his gun at you and then saying “HaHa, it wasn’t loaded,” as if everybody should just trust him to actually be sure of that, sure.  But, still, just a joke and nothing was ever done and within a day or two the world had recovered from its collective pants shitting and moved on.

Putin’s statement today about “remember that we’ve got a lot of nukes and could turn the United States into radioactive dust” is a lot more worrying.  Like Reagan, there is the possibility that he is old and senile.  I don’t actually believe that, but he sure likes to take his shirt off in public much more than is normal for a man his age.

The thing is, he was not joking at all when he said it.  His appeal to Russian voters is exactly what George W. Bush’s appeal was to American voters.  He’s the gang leader acting tough, the preening peacock, the one who’s going to solve the whole country’s problems by making war on somebody.

The thing is, he’s combining that statement with the most naked land grab since Hitler took the Sudetenland.

The  thing is, once somebody defies the world and gets away with it, their tendency is to do it again…and again…and again.

So, the world has a Putin problem.  Who can save the world from this evil, evil man?  Only the Russian people.     And, so far, I see no indication that they will.