Meet Russia’s Charlie McCarthy

by Christopher A. Ferrara

Well, here we are, nearly a quarter century after the “consecration of Russia” that never mentioned Russia, and Dmitry Medvedev has been “elected” Russia’s new President. As BBC notes, “Almost all commentators condemn Mr. Medvedev's landslide win… as a stage-managed ritual which offered Russians little choice…”

As BBC further notes, quoting another commentator, Medvedev’s “landslide victory” bears a suspicious resemblance to similar victories in other former Soviet satellites: “With this outcome, the freshly baked Russian president has confidently joined the company of well-known ‘people's favourites’: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.” 

Every one of them is a dictator. See the pattern here? The “former Soviet Union” is reassembling itself right before our eyes.  And at the head of the whole empire will be its neo-Stalinist icon: Vladimir Putin, who now calls himself Prime Minister.

Medvedev, of course, will do exactly what Putin tells him to do, since Putin handpicked this non-entity for the job.  Accordingly, one of Medvedev’s first official acts as “President” was to order a punitive reduction of natural gas supplies to the Ukraine — like Putin told him to.

Or perhaps it will go differently.  Perhaps Medvedev, once he gets a real taste of power and its trappings, will decide to assert his authority against Putin’s.  Then Russia will have two dictators, each vying to overcome the other. 

But probably not.  As another commentator quoted by BBC noted: “Nothing has changed in Russia. Putin remains the leader... [He] has changed nothing but his title.”  The same commentator dismisses as a “fabrication” the suggestion that Medvedev will be more liberal and pro-Western than Putin: “He has been Putin’s loyal co-worker for eight years. Why do we think that he will suddenly stand up and say that he will no longer listen to Putin?!”

Whichever way it goes, the poor Russian people will take it in the neck.

Back in the 1950s Edgar Bergen amused all of America with the antics of his ventriloquist’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy. One of the more memorable exchanges between Bergen and his dummy went this way:

Edgar Bergen: I don’t think that’s very funny.

Charlie McCarthy: You don’t?

Edgar Bergen: No.

Charlie McCarthy: Well then, why did you make me say it?

As the Medvedev “Presidency” of Russia unfolds, and the Sino-Russian alliance Putin forged begins to threaten the world, remember that Putin made him say it.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered people of that poor nation continue to suffer from the consequences of the failure to honor Our Lady’s eminently simple request at Fatima. And of late it seems that not even the most determined of the Fatima revisionists are still willing to speak of Russia’s “conversion.” Even they can recognize a looming apocalypse when they see one.  That, at least, is progress of a kind.