Free Oleg Kozlovsky!

Filed under: Russia

My latest installment on the Pajamas Media mother blog reviews the Kremlin's use of military conscription to silence Oleg Kozlovsky, a leading opposition political figure whose story I've already mentioned here on Publius. Please check out the article and leave a comment in support of Oleg, a heroic figure struggling against overwhelming odds to defend the last vestiges of democracy in Russia who needs out help desperately. You can find further updates about his status on my blog La Russophobe.

Also of great interest is a new piece on Slate from scholar Michael McFaul which takes Time magazine to task for its outrageous mischaracterization of Vladimir Putin's record in connection with its "Person of the Year" award. Pajamas editor Michael Weiss led the way on this story, but McFaul is an establishment figure whose word will have devastating consequences for Time's prestige. The blogosphere is really kicking MSM's butt on this one big time, and that's not the half of it. I reported some time ago that Time's reporter had made an embarrassingly stupid error regarding Putin's age whilst interviewing him. What even I didn't dare imagine was that Time would attempt to hide this error from its readers when it published the interview, but this turns out to be exactly what they tried. It's truly outrageous, and ought to disqualify Time from any further consideration by serious-minded people, at least where Russia is concerned. As Publius readers know, I took Time to task a few weeks ago on Pajamas for its horrifically biased Russia coverage, and this is now clearly the straw that broke the Russian bear's back.