Media's awful Trump-praises-Putin narrative even more mangled after VP debate

This is one of those stories where I'm honestly not sure if the problem is that the reporters are too dumb to know what's going on, or if they're just so determined to help Hillary that they'll lie about this shamelessly. I'm sort of leaning toward dumb, but either one is plausible. You've heard this many times, I'm sure: Trump loves Vladimir Putin! Trump praises Putin! Trump thinks Putin is a wonderful man and a great leader! None of this accurately describes Trump's statements or his actual thinking. There's a thing call respecting your opponent and being able to recognize his strengths. It's not the same thing as liking him. There's also a thing called gamesmanship, which means that if you have deal with someone, you don't publicly trash the person in advance of the encounter. You might not see that as a likely Trump strength because you keep hearing how "bombastic" he is, but there's a difference between someone you just want to defeat (Hillary) and someone you're going to have to do business with whether you like it or not, and that's what Putin represents.

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I suspect that Putin knows perfectly well Trump's statements about him do not amount to any sort of admiration. But the U.S. news media do not, which is why they were so confused on Tuesday night when Mike Pence very accurately described the kind of guy Putin is:

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump backed off from praising Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, saying he was unsure of his relationship with the Russian president who he has described as a better leader than President Barack Obama. The day after running mate Mike Pence appeared to break ranks with Trump during a vice presidential debate and called Putin "a small and bullying leader," Trump adjusted his own previously warm rhetoric toward the Russian. "I don't love (Putin), I don't hate. We'll see how it works. We'll see," Trump told supporters during a campaign stop in the swing state of Nevada. "Maybe we’ll have a good relationship. Maybe we’ll have a horrible relationship. Maybe we’ll have a relationship right in the middle."

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has criticized Trump, who often praises Putin, as being too cozy with the Russian leader and questioned the Republican's business interests in Russia. Those charges were repeated by her vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine during a debate with Pence on Tuesday. In response, Pence denounced Putin for his interference in Syria's civil war and support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "The small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States,” Pence said. "The greatest nation on earth just withdraws from talks about a ceasefire, while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria."

Pence tried to explain Trump's stance on Putin during the debate, but it was hard to do with Tim Kaine shouting over him every three seconds. Putin aggressively pursues Russia's strategic interests as he sees them, or maybe he's only pursuing Vladimir Putin's strategic interests. But the point is that he holds nothing back in going after what he wants. Barack Obama, by contrast, constantly backs down, prevaricates, rejects the notion of U.S. global leadership and touts the wonders of "leading from behind," whatever that means.

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Pence is in no way breaking ranks with Trump

Pence is in no way breaking ranks with Trump. Their positions are exactly the same, which is that it's time for a U.S. president to be as aggressive in the pursuit of U.S. interests as Putin is in the pursuit of Russian interests. Obama hasn't done that since the day took office. Whether he was welching on our commitment to put missile defenses in eastern Europe or letting Putin take Crimea or bowing to Putin's terms concernning chemical weapons in Syria, Putin is always the one calling the shots while Obama whispers to Dmitri Medvedev that he'll be really really flexible with Vladimir once he gets past his pesky re-election. And don't forget Hillary helped start all this with that dumbass "reset button" of hers. Trump does not like Putin. He never has and he's never said that he does. Trump recognizes that Putin plays hardball, while Obama plays tiddlywinks. It's time for that to stop. It's also time for the news media to get the slightest semblance of a clue and start reporting accurately what's really going on here. But I don't know how they can do that if they're too dumb, and probably too dishonest as well, to understand it.

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