If there’s one thing we seasoned Russia-watchers who have spent considerable time “in country” really really cannot stand (no matter whether we be Russophobe or Russophile, we can always reach perfect agreement on this), it’s when someone who hasn’t spent real time at ground zero starts pontificating his “insights” about the place, especially about what the people who live there think and feel and why they act the way they do.

For instance, the author of the blog Scraps of Moscow recently wrote the following about New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s first column based on a recent trip to Moscow in an e-mail to a fellow blogger:

What this column really says:

I went to Moscow and talked to one Russian pundit and one Russian politician. I also talked to one American expert who is crazy enough to actually live there. She told me a story about a time she went out to the provinces and talked to actual Russians. Did I mention that they’re starved for stores with Western consumer goods? Oh, yeah, and the place is a crazy quilt of a lot of phenomena I don’t really understand, so I’ll gloss over them and throw in some BS about Europe and a spoonful of corruption. But my trip wasn’t a total loss. I did grow a third hand – must be that Chernobyl thing.

With his beady eyes and twitchy mustache, Friedman resembles nothing so much as giant humanized rat (so let’s call him Ratboy for short, shall we?), and his rhetoric doesn’t discourage this view one bit. He’s so much more objectionable than the rest of the Times stable of crazed left-wing extremist ideologues due to the fact that he’s so much more dishonest; at least wackos like Paul Krugman make no pretense of doing anything other than engaging in rabid partisan propaganda and spewing blind hatred at the right. Friedman, by contrast, acts like he thinks people might believe he’s the second coming of Gandhi (or even Humbert Humphrey), dispensing some sort of Holy Bipartisan Truth from Mt. Gray Lady like an oracle of omniscient do-good-ity.

Incidentally, it’s impossible to link to Friedman’s column, because it’s locked behind a pay-per-view vault called “Times Select” along with all the other columns that appear on the op-ed page from the Times’ stable of lunatics. Why? Because, desperately strapped for cash as it sees readership and revenues plummet and layoffs soar, the Times has decided to manipulate the frenzied cult of weirdos, tiny but monied, who follow the Times pundits with ultra-religious fervor by forcing them to pay to see their heroes in print. In other words, the Gray Lady is putting it on the street for some quick cash. And there is a side benefit because, conveniently, since we can’t link to the column it’s that much harder to organize opposition to correct its disinformation.

Friedman’s second missive from Russia made his first bit of drivel seem sagacious beyond all words by comparison. Headlined “Putin Pushes Back” and appearing on Valentine’s Day, the column sought to blame America (and, if at all possible, Republicans) for the rise of dictatorship in Russia. It claims that “we helped to create a mood in Russia hospitable to a conservative cold warrior like Mr. Putin by forcing NATO on a liberal democrat like Mr. Yeltsin.” For sure, this is one of the most breathtakingly dishonest sentences ever printed in the English language. Only the the New York Times could pack so much disinformation into such a small, grammatically correct space. Three quick questions serve to show how malevolent this sentence really is.

First: What you mean “we” kimosabe? In bizarre fashion Friedman attempts to claim that America’s relations with the Yeltsin government had something to do with George H. W. Bush (whom he refers to respectfully as “Bush I”) and hence the Republicans as well as Bill Clinton and the Democrats. In fact, it was Clinton alone who was responsible for America’s policy towards Yeltsin. Clinton became president in January 1993. Yeltsin was not even elected President of the Russian Republic until June 12, 1991, and at that time Gorbachev still led the USSR. The coup against Gorbachev did not occur until August and Yeltsin did not have consolidated power until early 1992. Within months thereafter, “Bush I” had been voted out of office. If Friedman thinks “Bush I” undertook some wildly provocative action towards Russia in those few lame-duck months, he must have got hold of that unusually powerful New York Times special weed we’ve all heard so much about. Clinton left office in January 2001. Yeltsin stepped aside in favor of acting president Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve, 1999. The Republicans had nothing to do with Yeltsin. Mr. Friedman really ought to spend a bit more time with his ratlike nose in a book. Preferably a history book. His attempt to drag Republicans into this issue is nothing short of an outrage.

Second: What you mean “liberal democrat” kimosabe? People who actually know something about Russia can only gape slack-jawed at the notion that Yeltsin was a “liberal democrat.” Hasn’t Friedman heard about Yeltsin’s March 1993 assumption (just after Clinton took office) of “special powers” over the nation (not unlike the recent actions of dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezuela) which was immediately followed by impeachment proceedings, or his subsequent disbanding (in September) of the legislature, which was followed in short order by his military attack upon the legislature when it declined to be disbanded? Surely, he must have heard the rumors about how Yeltsin stacked the deck against his Communist rival when he was re-elected president in a landslide despite having single-digit public approval ratings (under his rule, the value of Russia’s currency plummeted and inflation skyrocketed, and then there was that nasty little matter of bombing his own parliament into submission). At the very least, he must have some awareness of the fact that the only reason a proud KGB spy currently rules Russia is that Yeltsin decreed it.

Third: What you mean “mood in Russia” kimosabe? Vladimir Putin didn’t become president because of the “mood in Russia.” He became president because Boris Yeltsin plucked him out of obscurity and summarily ordered the Russian people to vote for him and then, despite professing to hate Yeltsin, they did so in lemming-like manner, with a goodly amount of electoral corruption in Putin’s favor thrown in for good measure. “President” Putin then crushed all opposition political parties and independent media, and basically was re-elected unopposed. Is Ratboy really suggesting that “liberal democrat” Yeltsin decided to turn the reins of power over to a proud KGB spy because he felt that was the best way to protect the country from the imperialist designs of NATO? One’s mind boggles. Perhaps Ratboy is simply operating at an intellectual level too lofty for the ordinary human to comprehend. More likely, though, he’s expressing haughty contempt for Russians in the guise of respect. Basically, he’s saying that Russia is a nation of psychopaths who can’t grasp reality and who may launch themselves helter-skelter into oblivion based on one wrong word from the “true” humans in the West. Therefore, we have to treat them like they were wild dogs, and try not to get them excited. Now that’s a Russophobe! He doesn’t seem the realize the fundamentally crazy character of his suggestion: If Russia really is a nation of wild dogs, then sooner or later those wild dogs will go berzerk. There’s nothing we can do about that except gird our loins, yet he doesn’t advise us to do so.

It’s genuinely incredible that a sentence like this could even dream of seeing the light of day in the nation’s “paper of record.” Friedman should be fired for writing it, but what will actually happen, however, is that probably he’ll get promoted to Editor-in-Chief. Don’t forget that during the Cold War the Times told us that Russians were soulful democrats just waiting to escape their abusive regime and the provocation of narrow-minded Americans/Republicans, that all they needed was a chance to show their stuff. They got that chance. They elected a proud KGB spy. Here come the excuses and disinformation.

But there’s more, much more, reason to oust Friedman. Needless to say, the rest of his “analysis” is also somewhat questionable. Nowhere in the piece, for instance, do we find the slightest attempt to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the people of Russia may perhaps be subject to criticism for choosing to elect a proud KGB spy by an overwhelming margin (or, heaven forbid, that the Times may have misled us regarding their propensity to do so in the past — it’s the president’s fault, of course, not the Times!). At least Friedman will, from time to time, say a word or two about possible blameworthiness of Arabs who murder children in Israel (though, granted, primarily for propaganda purposes). But as for Russians? Not a peep.

He claims that “we need to be getting Russia’s help” but he doesn’t give one single example of Russia ever “helping” us to do anything (other than to build a military-industrial complex and lose sleep over nuclear apocalypse). In fact, he doesn’t suggest one single thing Russia even could do to help us if we agree to stop “forcing” NATO upon it. (By this latter remark, he seems to be suggesting that the United States shouldn’t form strategic military alliances against Russia unless Russia first says it’s OK. Amazing what a few days in Moscow will do, isn’t it?) Is Russia going to cut the price of gas at the pump if we agree to drop the idea of putting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO? Is it going to catch and hand over Osama bin Laden? Is it going to give back the oil and gas fields it has stolen from Western investors and let Mikhail Khodorkhovsky out of prison? Ratboy isn’t saying. Maybe by “help” me means not give active assistance to terrorists who are trying to kill us. If so, he’s suggesting we bribe them not to kill us.

By far the most bizarre claim in the article is Friedman’s repeated suggestion that Russia is mad not because NATO membership was expanded, but because we didn’t offer NATO membership to Russia itself. Mind you, not even Friedman is wacko enough to suggest that Russia would have accepted this invitation. So what in blazes is he talking about? Apparently, he feels it’s just nice to be asked, and that Russia got offended by this lack of courtesy and hence decided to rebuild the Soviet state. Isn’t that an awful tragedy?

Friedman refers to “Vladmir Ryzhkov, one of the last liberal Duma members who is ready to openly criticize the Putin government.” He says Ryzhkov agrees with him. Yet, he doesn’t mention one single direct criticism of Putin that Ryzhkov has ever made, nor does he say what difference it would make if Ryzhkov did so. Is Ryzhkov “ready” not only to “openly criticize” but to risk his neck and seek to divest Putin of power? Ratboy isn’t saying. Ryzhkov appeared on the PBS Newshour broadcast in December 2006 to talk about the Litvinenko killing. Here’s his remarks in full:

There are not any conditions for honest and free elections in Russia today. That means that next parliamentary elections and the next presidential elections will be totally manipulated. And it will be very simple: Putin will nominate his successor as a candidate, and this successor will have huge, enormous resources for to be re-elected. Any critic of regime in Russia is now in the risk. Political murder in Russia today is normal instrument of political life and political struggle. And this is the main dangerous thing. And I think that, if you take a list of victims, all of them are liberals, liberal critics of regime, so that means that violence mostly oriented against liberal flank of Russian politics. You know, people feel that no one could feel himself safety, so all of us feel that life is nothing.

Whoa there, Vladimir, take it easy! Try to be a bit diplomatic, can’t you? Ryzhkov doesn’t even try to directly blame Putin for the Litvinenko killing, doesn’t mention by name any other recent political killing, and makes no attempt to blame Putin personally for electoral corruption. The idea that this man can offer us a better Russia in exchange for us backing off the NATO throttle is, putting it mildly, insane. If Friedman is Ratboy, Ryzhkov is Mouseboy. We hear the echoes of the cowardly Grigori Yavlinksy, supposed reformer and actually wallflower.

And then to round things out Friedman just starts lying (unless of course he simply didn’t check out his “sources” enough to actually know who they are): His other named “source” in the article was one Aleksei Pushkov, whom Friedman identifies as having “a foreign policy news show on Russian TV.” Forgetting to mention that Russian TV the slave of the Kremlin, Friedman characterizes Puhskov as some sort of pro-West liberal scholar and tells us that Pushkov, too, feels we need to stop pressing the NATO issue “because you are losing Russia.” To put it mildly, Pushkov is lying (and playing Ratboy for the fool he is) when he says he is interested in helping make Russia democratic and friendly to the West — and Friedman is helping him lie. Here’s what he wrote in the Russian paper Nezavisimaya Gazeta in 1998, in an article titled “The Shadow Goes East” (referring to NATO): “Encouraged by the USA, which walks on air propelled by the feeling of power, NATO can make mistakes. In other words, it can blunder, as the USA had blundered in Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iran. And other countries will have to pay for this blunder, and pay dearly.” No wonder the Times likes him so much as a source. Radio Liberty refers to Pushkov as “Kremlin-connected TV-Tsentr political analyst.” Too bad Ratboy didn’t feel the need to tell us about that. So much for the vaunted standards of journalism at the Gray Lady.

What Ratboy can’t seem to understand is that nobody in Russia is writing columns in major newspapers asking what Russia may have done to make the USA think it was necessary to expand NATO or how Russians can help avoid a second outbreak of cold war. Instead, they’re favoring Vladimir Putin with stratospheric approval ratings as he destroys local government and the media and sells weapons to arch American foes like Iran, Venezuela and Hezbollah. So basically, what Ratboy is doing is selling our side down the river, gambling that Russia won’t take advantage but will instead have its heart melted by our bravery and humanity. That makes him dangerous to American national security, no two ways about it.

Ratboy is quite correct, though, that America bares some blame for the rise of the neo-Soviet Union in Russia. But not because we were too confrontational. We’re to blame because we were not nearly confrontational enough, just as we were to blame for the rise of Hitler and Stalin, for the same reason. Because what we see in Russia today is not the result of our provocation, it’s the result of the latent, deep-seated hatred of the West that prevails in Russia today as it always has done, a hatred that include contempt for Western institutions like democracy. What we saw after the fall of the Berlin Wall was simply weakness, not friendship or change. Russians didn’t have the strength to attack us, so they didn’t. But now they do, so it happens. They were just waiting for the opportunity. And why should we think differently? Why should we patronizingly assume they didn’t “really believe” in Soviet animosity, that they would abandon their creed just because we had defeated them? Would we have abandoned our affection for democracy if they had defeated us? Come to think of it, it’s just possible that Ratboy, for one, would have done exactly that.

Why did we fail to understand this? Could it be because Ratboy and his ilk misled us? Will we ever learn? Not as long as we keep eating Ratboy’s toxic jellybeans.

Kim Zigfeld publishes the Russia blog La Russophobe.