Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Dimitri Trenin just published a piece in Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Putin the Peacemaker?" The teaser right below the provocative title reads as follows:

"Russia's once and future president, Vladimir Putin, likes to talk tough. But what he really wants is to be America's partner -- and Washington isn't listening."

Folks, there's no end to the folderol that flows from the pens and computers of the East Coast cognoscenti. I don't know about you but I'm getting mighty tired of being told what to believe, what to think about politics, religion, business, banks, China, the Oscars, gay marriage, contraception, home-schooling, Iran, defense spending, Muslims, and you-name-it. Oh, did I mention Russia? Add Russia to that list. And Putin.

Now a leading expert on all things Russian is telling us that Putin wants to be our friend! And he's broadcasting this balderdash from the lofty perch of a Washington-based magazine called Foreign Policy (published by The Washington Post). We the Great Unwashed out here in the hinterlands are supposed to sit up and take notice. After all, what do we know about high politics, foreign policy, or Vladimir Putin, right?

Answer #1: We know about as much about Putin as anybody other than Putin knows about Putin. Answer #2: We know the difference between s*** and shoe polish. (Shinola, in the vernacular.) Answer #3: We know that what comes out of Washington these days is mostly the stuff you don't want to step in out here in cow country.

Let me jump on the "been there done that" bandwagon. Not that it matters, but I'm a card-carrying Russophile: I like Russia, speak some Russian, and over the years have experienced the hospitality, warmth and generosity of Russians on various occasions. But that doesn't mean a) that I have to like - much less trust - Putin; or b) pretend to have any idea what Putin has up his sleeve.

I don't. And neither does anybody else.

Read Masha Gessen's new book published here in the United States (and, be it noted, not in Russia, where she resides). Title: "The Man Without a Face". Guess who Gessen is writing about.

One thing we know for certain about Putin is that he's ruthless. Another is that he's inscrutable. Gessen argues plausibly that he is also motivated by nostalgia for the good old days when the ghost of Stalin still haunted Mother Russia and whispered in the ears of the Party bosses who tyrannized the country behind the walls of the fortress called the Kremlin. In other words, the Cold War era. When Russia was America's archenemy and vice versa.

So rather than portray Putin as a closet dove, let's think of him as Protean Man. He can assume any form you can imagine. Then and only then dare to prescribe how best to deal with a small-minded faceless little tyrant who harasses, jails, and sometimes murders his real or imagined enemies. And in so doing, keep in mind that the world is presently witnessing the kind of spontaneous mass demonstrations against the corrupt rule of this mean little man the likes of which we have not seen since the fall of the mighty Soviet Union.