Mikhail Gorbachev to Putin: Don't Run for President Again

Yahoo! News ^ | March 2, 2011 | Mark Whittington

[americanophile]

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Soviet Union and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was awarded Russia's highest medal upon his 80th birthday. Gorbachev used the occasion to urge Vladimir Putin not to run for Russian president.

Putin has already served two terms as Russian president and is currently the Russian prime minister. Putin has been noted for his high-handed style of governance that has seemed at times to rival that of the rulers of the old Soviet Union.

It is therefore somewhat ironic that Gorbachev has again invoked democracy and freedom in his tart advice to Putin. While Gorbachev is remembered as a reformer in the West, he was no friend of democracy while he ruled the Soviet Union. Indeed, had the Soviet Union never fallen, Gorbachev, following the example of most of his predecessors, likely would still be ruling an empire that at its time stretched from the Elbe River to the Pacific and included client states such as Cuba and Vietnam.

Gorbachev will not suffer the fate of most critics of Putin because of salient facts. Gorbachev is a well-respected elder statesman in the West, mainly for trying to install a sort of kinder, gentler Communism. He is, however, despised within Russia as the man who lost the Soviet Union and crippled Russia as a great power for decades. With respect abroad and no influence at home, Putin pretty much allows Gorbachev to say what he wants. There is no harm in it.

[fishtank]

I get the feeling that in Russia:

Gorbachev is about like Jimmy Carter

and

Putin is about like Reagan.

ONLY AS FAR AS POPULARITY goes..........

I ain’t talkin’ about their policies...............

[USSR Didnt Fall]

What a joke, do you think that the Soviets would show their hand to the media unless they had a hidden agenda in doing so?

Please people they are on the verge of destroying the West, everything is going according to plan.

[americanophile]

Yep, we’re being out-Reaganed even as we speak.

[USSR Didnt Fall]

Yes they are the ones defeating us without a shot being fired. Khrushchev was right in the end based on his 1959 threat to Ezra Benson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ7LcplfkgY&feature=player_embedded

[Chi-townChief]

I would imagine that Putin will, just as President Bush once did, suggest that Gorby contain himself.

[americanophile]

The reds didn’t disappear as they say, they simply turned green. They've spend every day since 1991 infiltrating and undermining our society with socialist, collectivist ideas; infecting our government, our schools, our entertainment and popular culture, our economic system, our faith, etc. Now that we've almost been bankrupted by entitlements, they've teamed up with the Islamists to bring America to its knees, even while they grow their economies and rearm. We're at a critical juncture.

[USSR Didnt Fall]

Not one trial after admitting to slaughering 40 - 60 million of their own people?

Not one communist put in jail for these attrocities that were carried out by hundreds of thousands if not millions when you count all support operatives.

What did we do?

Under Bush 41, we flooded them with tax payer money, grain deals, IMF low interest loans, technology, corporate investment and now we are suprised that Russia and China are about to topple us?

Goltisyn explained this to us back in the 60’s but no one would listen. He was able to brief both Kenedy’s and you saw how the commies took care of them.

We are about to lose the Cold War, and people will have no clue until its too late.

[americanophile]

Yep. I think we’re a small chorus however.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Yeah Vladimir don’t run for President, run for Tsar instead.

[ItsForTheChildren]

Gorby’s gonna catch a cold if he's not careful.

[cunning_fish]

In fact Gorby is not a Carter. He was Soviet Obama.
A loosing Afghan war he could easily win, all that decadent liberal agenda and ruining his nation in the end.

[pobeda1945]