There are times when I feel bad for John McCain. While he is a bloodthirsty war monger I still wouldn’t wish senility on anybody. In a Code War-esque maneuver, John McCain decided to retaliate against the letter submitted to the New York Times by Vladamir Putin’s public relations people. How did McCain go about his retaliatory strike? By having his public relations people submit a letter to Pravada, Russia’s state new paper… during the Cold War:
Sen. John McCain, a man of his word, published his editorial — a stirring defense of the rights to free speech, dissent and political expression — in Russia’s Pravda, just like he said he would.
One small problem: As people are now finally pointing out, this isn’t the famous Pravda. After the Soviet Union was made to collapse, its official propaganda organ was sold off and eventually closed. There is no more “Pravda,” omnipresent national newspaper in which the Kremlin disseminates the party line to the oppressed masses. There is now Pravda, the struggling, thrice-weekly organ of the remains of the Communist Party, and Pravda.ru, a sensationalistic online-only news site few people in Russia take seriously.
Being such a war hawk you would think McCain would keep up on world affairs. While Putin had his people submit a letter to what is probably the most famous newspaper in our country, McCain had his people submit his letter to a failing newspaper that nobody seems to be reading. That has to be embarrassing.