Not owning pets, my interpretation would be that you compared President Obama to a dog??

If you want a chill, look up the 2012 Victory Day parade in Moscow and watch the video.

To be honest, there's been a bizarre trend among folks on the more libertarian side of the equation to embrace and excuse Putin - and not just on this specific issue. (More Ron Paul types than pure libertarians, to be fair)

On my Facebook news feed someone posted "It looks beginning to look like Russia has more freedom than us..." Others have applauded Putin for standing up to American imperialism. All were Ron Paul supporters.

It's one thing to acknowledge and bemoan the fact that Putin got the better of Obama (as you did). It's another thing altogether to applaud it (which this lady mistakenly assumes you did). Putin's a dictator and a thug. He's the antithesis of libertarianism. But something's going on here in terms of the embrace of Putin. This is a real and disturbing trend.

My hunch is that this woman was a bit hyper-vigilant and ready to push back.

First, I suspect this woman is one of the Obamanoids who refuse to hear any criticism of their hero.

@AB: Regarding Putin, I don't think it's any sort of praise to say "looks like Russia has for freedom than we do". When people make this statement, Russia is presumed to be the constant - they are referring to the rapidly disintegrating freedoms here, in the USA.

So sure, Putin is a thug, and people (including his own populations) know this. Obama is also a thug, as is the entire US government. The US government, however, wears a better mask, and some people still believe in the mask. Like the lady above.

The headline I would love to see: Nobel Peace Prize winners seeks to start yet another war

Not owning pets, my interpretation would be that you compared President Obama to a dog??

Act like a dog, be compared to one.

The real problem is that he is acting like a dog. One who got caught in the act.

PS I think it's disrespectful (and pretty childish) to refer to him as "Barry" and that I was wrong in some of the ways I referred to George Bush on this count.

I thought it was a good metaphor. It's evocative in several ways, all of which relate to the issue.

And yeah, there are some leftist pacifists hiding among libertarians, and in particular a lot of Ron Paul's support comes from them.

You won't find many people who dislike this president more than I.

But to compare him to an ex-KGB dictator who has murdered his political opponents and members of the press goes too far.

@AB: It's called hyperbole. In any case, it is not so far removed as you may think. While he hasn't murdered any political opponents just yet, he (or his administration) have plenty of other things.

Take the current Syrian situation as an example: Just why does Obama have such a hard-on for bombing Syria? We really need to be involved in yet another conflict that is none of our business.

In short, Obama is amply evil. Maybe he hasn't risen to the level of Putin just yet, but Putin has been working on it longer.

You mean you don't think Obama farts rainbows, pisses Merlot and craps caviar? Racist! Hate speech! Kill the witch!

Sure Obama didn't set the KGB on you to make political opponents vanish that we know of, Debate is still out on some reporters, he set the IRS on them. Not as bad but still bad.

The thing I'll never understand is the certain weapons are good others are evil mindset.
Kill 200,000 rebels in Syria with conventional arms, that's fine, kill a couple hundred with chems and "EVIL".
Same I see with civilian owned guns. people get stabbed, strangled, beaten to death, but if a civilian owned gun is used then it's 'evil'.

But to compare him to an ex-KGB dictator who has murdered his political opponents and members of the press goes too far.

Murder, no.

Set the power of the government on them? oh, hell yes. When the IRS, FBI, OSHA, ATF all come knocking on your door in a matter of months, you've pissed someone off.

Same government that wiretapped the AP's phones, and Jay Rosen as well.

I find it interesting that the spin placed on this story is dependent on who you ask.

One friend swears it was a brilliant "good cop/bad cop" routine pulled off by Obama and Putin, as "bad cop," "good cop" respectively.

And the other extreme is here.

Before Frick and Frack bother to ask (read: assume) -- inexplicably, my opinion is so very important to them -- I don't know which side is right. I don't sufficiently give a fuck to research this incident and form an opinion.

But to compare him to an ex-KGB dictator who has murdered his political opponents and members of the press goes too far.

Posted by: AB at September 12, 2013 7:29 AM

Yet, Obama pushed the now called "obamacare" mandate, that basically makes all Americans slaves to the federal government via socialized healthcare.

Dont like Putin much, He is a thug like Assad, but he is not a stupid thug.

Putin survived in the old USSR, where one wrong move, politically got you the death penality. Merely being friends with the wrong people could end your career and your life.

I respect him more than I do Obama. Obama is neither smart enough or politically savvy enough to have survived the political tightrope Putin has walked for the last forty years.

Putin and Assad are both "smart" thugs. Did you know Assad is a trained Opthomologist?

Obama on the other hand, is a "dumb" thug, and he is way out of his depth matching wits with either of these guys.

We dont give a fuck about you or your opinion Patrick. We just like pointing out how on the on hand you get angry at anyone assuming you agree with a position you write from a pro stance while on the other bitch and moan that you'll never tell us what you really think.

The real fun starts when we get to point out the instances of you getting pissed at people for pointing out when you do the same thing

Isab had it right: "Dont like Putin much, He is a thug like Assad, but he is not a stupid thug." Grudging admiration for a smart thug. Magnified by contrast with our dumb thug. Actually, BHO is smarter than many give him credit for. Meteoric rise to the presidency. Twice elected president. Clever exploitation of his race. Savvy media manipulation. In tune with prevailing culture. Smart politician. Disastrous president. Certainly no match for Putin. Which was Amy's point.

Isab had it right: "Dont like Putin much, He is a thug like Assad, but he is not a stupid thug." Grudging admiration for a smart thug. Magnified by contrast with our dumb thug. Actually, BHO is smarter than many give him credit for. Meteoric rise to the presidency. Twice elected president. Clever exploitation of his race. Savvy media manipulation. In tune with prevailing culture. Smart politician. Disastrous president. Certainly no match for Putin. Which was Amy's point.

Isab had it right: "Dont like Putin much, He is a thug like Assad, but he is not a stupid thug." Grudging admiration for a smart thug. Magnified by contrast with our dumb thug. Actually, BHO is smarter than many give him credit for. Meteoric rise to the presidency. Twice elected president. Clever exploitation of his race. Savvy media manipulation. In tune with prevailing culture. Smart politician. Disastrous president. Certainly no match for Putin. Which was Amy's point.

Posted by: Jim Simon at September 12, 2013 9:31 PM

I don't think Obama is either very intelligent, or particularly well educated.

He had the money to pay for a good campaign, and some smart people to run it for him. He also had the press totally in the tank for him. No vetting, no nothing.

Kerry is another politician with a very average IQ, and a poor grasp of history.

Even less smart than Obama. Deadly combination for any kind of effective leadership. They are floundering, and the US will be fortunate if we manage to avoid World War III in the middle east.

"Putin survived in the old USSR, where one wrong move, politically got you the death penality. Merely being friends with the wrong people could end your career and your life."

That's an excellent point. Obama, by contrast, has had a very easy career. He was chosen to be an icon early on, and at every step of the way, there's been someone there to do the heavy lifting for him. I walk on perilous ground here because every President since Reagan (at least) has been accused of being a "puppet president", and that's not quite what I mean to get at, but Obama the poltician is pretty much a creation of the Boomer-lefitst cabal that built him. Obama the man, by contrast, is mostly without shape because he's never had to think about things very much. At some level he himself realizes this; his statement during the 2008 campaign about how he was a blank slate that people projected their wishes on was very perceptive.

But yes, because politics has always been easy for him, he is not up to facing the likes of Putin or Assad. And the people in his entourage are a mix of hopelessly naive and traitorous. Either they regard Putin and Assad as fellow travellers (while Putin and Assad regard them as useful idiots), or else they are actually in league.

"A serious foreign-policy intellectual said recently that Putin's problem is he's a Russian leader in search of a Nixon, a US president he can really negotiate with, a stone player who can talk grand strategy and the needs of his nation, someone with whom he can thrash it through and work it out. Instead he has Obama a self-besotted charismatic who can't tell the difference between showbiz and strategy, and who enjoys unburdening himself of moral insights to his peers." ~ Peggy Noonan

We're watching a chess game on a grand scale between a grandmaster and a novice who still hasn't figured out how the horsie-pieces move.