I recall thinking when George W. and Putin first met, how foolish Bush sounded when he said about Putin something like “I looked into his soul and liked what I saw.” The Americans I thought have got themselves a fool for a president. Only an ignoramus would say something like that. I’ll bet that Bush has never read a single Russian short story or a novel that would allow him any sensitivity about the “Russian Soul”.
For him to say something as stupid as that was sufficient proof for me that the only thing he knew about the “Russian Soul” was what he had heard others say about it. He sits for a relatively brief period of time with a man with a mind like the proverbial steel trap and thinks he can come away like a deep thinker by saying that he’s plumbed the depth of Putin’s Russian soul. If Georgie was at all familiar with Russian classics he’d know that the Russian soul is a myth.
The concept of the “Russian Soul” grew out of the millions of words written by Russian writers who were obsessed by religion — the Russian Orthodox version — and matters mostly of jealousy, hate, frustration, and especially guilt. And boy how they suffered — to the point of excruciating boredom, for this writer, at least. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a great novel spoiled by the suffering Pierre. George W., take it from me, there is no Russian soul. They are people just like us with their own cultural and economic history. There is no special great well of mystery to be fathomed and if you weren’t such an ignoramus you’d have known and spoken the truth — I glanced into Putin’s eyes and saw nothing of any note except perhaps that of a skillful poker player.
We have in this issue a verbatim interview with Craig Unger about his book The Fall of the House of Bush. It gives us an insider’s look at how the Neocons and the Christian right combined to seize control of the White House with George W. as their front man. It reveals Dick Cheney’s duplicity. It reveals George W.’s adolescent behaviour regarding his father who opposed the war in Iraq. It reveals the lies that conned the nation into a conflict that, by some legitimate count, has killed more than a million. It’s a relatively long piece but worth your time to read and to print out and pass around.
Then, not to leave Putin out, we have a couple of Russian souls argue that Putin is marching to the beat of Czar Nicholas 1 and is surrounded by friends who have made themselves super wealthy by playing his game.
And then, of course, there is Larry King, who is the golly gee of television. The piece we have here is how Larry got conned into an insurance scam and got stuck with the short end of the trick. Don’t go away, we’ll be back.
Looking forward,
Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective.
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