My favorite fable is “The Scorpion and the Frog.”
You know the one: A scorpion wants to cross a river but can’t swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, fearful that the scorpion will sting, but the scorpion promises not to, explaining that if he did, they’d both drown.
The frog thinks this is logical, so it carries the scorpion across the river, and halfway over, the scorpion stings the frog, condemning them both to death.
“Why did you do that?” exclaimed the incredulous frog.
“Sorry,” came the reply. “I couldn’t help myself, it’s my nature.”
The fable is Russian in origin, which is ironic given that I’m recounting it now because it reminds me of Vladimir Putin and his merry band of brainwashed, demented, deluded or simply woefully naïve supporters.
Let’s be clear: As exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison because Putin took a dislike to him, told me in an interview yesterday, Putin is a gangster, a mob boss who will kill anyone who gets in his way and steal anything he wants.
There’s no ambiguity about it.
Putin doesn’t even try very hard to hide it.
He is what he is: a ruthless, corrupt, murderous former KGB agent with zero respect for human life, consumed with enriching and empowering himself.
He jailed his most popular critic, Alexi Navalny, and then had him killed last week, because that’s what Putin does to all his rivals, especially in the run-up to elections that he’s already rigged to ensure victory.
And by displaying such brazen, contemptible, deadly thuggery, he sends a shiver down the spines of others thinking of even raising a quizzical eyebrow in his direction.
Putin deploys the same tactic with whole countries, rattling his nuclear armory at them whenever he thinks they need reminding that he’s an evil warlord bully with more nukes than anyone in the world.
Of course, none of us should ever need reminding what a despicable, despotic, heartless monster he is.
Yet, astoundingly, there are still many prominent people in America, particularly on the conservative right, who seem in weird, inexplicable awe of Vlad the Terrible.
After days of silence since Navalny’s death, Donald Trump finally issued a statement that didn’t even mention the person who caused it, and swiftly pivoted to a self-serving rant about why Trump’s the world’s main victim of injustice, and why America’s a failing country.
I don’t know why Trump loves Putin so much that he can’t even bring himself to condemn him for such an egregious act.
As Nikki Haley, his only remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, tweeted: ‘We need a leader with the moral clarity to call a spade a spade. Putin is not our friend. He is a murderous dictator who killed Navalny. Why can’t Donald Trump say that out loud?’
When I interviewed him in 2008 for GQ magazine, Trump was scornful of President George W. Bush for sucking up to Putin, telling me, “Putin played Bush like a fiddle. Bush went around saying what a nice guy he was, and thought he was his friend. And since then, Russia has gone up like a rocket and this country has gone down like a not-so-successful rocket. It’s booming, and we’re the opposite.”
Now Trump’s boasting of telling NATO allies that if they don’t pay their 2% of GDP on defense bills — he’s right, they should — and get invaded by Russia, he would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.”
Hmmm … What changed, Donald?
Tucker Carlson has also fallen inexplicably hard for Moscow’s Kool-Aid.
I like the ex-Fox News star personally and have always enjoyed his contrary broadcasting style, but I can’t for the life of me understand why he’s so intent on acting like Putin’s compliant puppet and defender of all things Russian against American, even down to the supposed superior quality of their shopping carts.
Why would someone so intelligent “root” for Russia over Ukraine, backing a barbaric dictatorship against a sovereign democratic country?
Equally, what the hell was Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) thinking when he stood up at 2 a.m. last Tuesday to basically wave the white flag of surrender?
“I don’t like this reality,” he said, explaining why he opposed sending more aid to Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal. Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.”
Other conservatives like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) don’t want to help either because they think Ukraine aid “puts America last” and means “we’re ignoring our own people’s problems.”
Why has the GOP grown so selfish and spineless?
I find it baffling that a party once almost 100% united in entirely justified dislike and distrust for Russian dictators now wants to be complicit in helping them win illegal wars in Europe.
What do they think Putin will do if he succeeds in his Ukraine land grab, slink back into the Kremlin shadows, full of gratitude for America’s subservience?
Of course he won’t.
Like the scorpion, he’ll carry on attacking everyone and everything until someone stops him. That’s his nature.
And as history shows us, those who fall for Putin’s malevolent bulls–t, or give cover to him along the way, will live to regret it and be as startled as the frog when it got stung halfway across the river.
“It’s horrifying what happened to Navalny,” Tucker Carlson said this week. “The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.”
Right.
But who would even think of rooting for the person or regime responsible?
Especially when that person would sting them to death too, with Novichok poison, if it suited him.