Stop polishing Putin's backside.

Apologetics for Vlad the Poisoner have become a staple for some on the right, and it needed to stop years ago. 

Now would be a belated, but still good, time to quit. And never stop quitting.  

You can be opposed to American military intervention in an aggressive war by a nuclear power and not take up the cause of the probable loony who has the nukes. 

But just as distressing was the speech Vladimir Putin gave to announce it to the world. Earlier today I wrote a piece that in one line offhandedly suggested that Putin was a rational actor. I repent of having written it. If that ranting, grandiose, aggrieved wreck of a speech was delivered sincerely, then Putin has addled himself with his own propaganda, is now unpredictable, and will likely drive his nation and others to a disaster. I grant that there may be insincerity in it as well. But reports of his meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron suggest that Macron was subjected to six hours of this same ranting and could never bring Putin down to what Europeans see as the brass tacks: the Minsk agreements, the withdrawal of Russian irregulars, and a series of next steps, including diplomatic talks on the long-term security arrangements of Europe.

His speech featured the Russian litany of post–Cold War grievances, namely the broken promise not to expand NATO. “They try to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance, saying that there are no threats to Russia. Again they propose that we take them at their word. But we know the real value of such words,” he said. More disconcerting, he suggested that the expansion of NATO was meant to “serve as a forward springboard for the strike.”

Here's a background confirmation of Macron's concerns about Putin, which is significant given the French president's efforts to develop a good diplomatic relationship. 

There's a fair and reasonable argument to be made that NATO expansion was an antagonizing mistake. But that argument has to take into account the fact that Russia's neighbors have ample reasons, grounded in history and atrocity, to clamor to join. 

American apologists for foreign strongmen have never been lacking. As a child of the Cold War, whataboutism was born of that conflict, and left-wing defenses of the poor murderous Soviet Union were more abundant than the average Soviet harvest. It is disgusting to see the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens do the very same thing on behalf of a former KGB agent. 

It's beyond appalling watching American oligarchs and celebrities kow-tow to Xi. Seeing soi-disant patriotic conservatives doing the same for the tyrant in Moscow (who has clasped hands with Mao 2.0) is inexcusable.