Professor Stephen Cohen, like him or not, condemn him or not for being a Gorbachev altar boy who never grew up to 21st Putin reality, is an articulate presenter of a "narrative" (don't you hate that phony word?) of the tragic Russian-Ukrainian situation that should be listened to if only to keep a balanced (sane?) mind re what's happening in the post-Soviet space. There are no angels in this very sad situation.
As for former Ambassador McFaul, I draw attention to a politically incorrect, crude, plain nasty review of his "Unfinished Revolution," book which appeared years ago (and, I'm willing to bet, no one, absolutely no one in the WH read before nominating McFaul to be ambassador to the Russian Federation. But Putin's staff sure did, I'm again willing to bet).
The review, published on November 27, 2002 by a member of the English-language iconoclastic publication The eXile (a must-read at that time -- 98-01 -- for persons interested in post-Soviet Russia, despite the tabloid's in-your-face vulgarity, on "What is really going on in Russia?").
Of course, who/which funding/secret organizations were really "behind" The eXile? Another Russian "vechnyi vopros" [eternal question]. But I did read The eXile's free copies, available at restaurants frequented by foreigners, with considerable interest -- and with "grossed-out" fascination while living in-still "transitional" Russia in '98.
The eXile was a very, very (I stress the minor) minor Bateau ivre -- but, still, of sociological, if not, at rare times, stylistic interest.
On one level it read like naive horny all-American male on God-knows-what-drugs commenting about a society (and its devushkas) straight out of the apocalypse they -- the male horny Americans -- were freaked out about but couldn't quite exploit to their metaphysical (or should I more properly say physical) satisfaction ... -- and least they were supposedly "honest" about it.
Readers like yours truly repent on being somewhat seduced to this kind of journalism/fiction. In part because -- blame my skepticism -- especially after looking at MSN "evening news" on USA Tee-Vee, I believe, less and less, in the objectivity of "news" ("news are the shock troops of propaganda").
Just consider -- what's his name? -- self-promoting Mr. Jaw-man Brian Williams (who now remembers him in the United States of Amnesia? A couple of months ago is, like, totally forgotten in the Land of the Free).
So I am still intrigued, after a decade, by the The eXiles's crudeness (but less and less as the years go by) ... but after all I put up with watching "Dancing with the Stars" on Tee-Vee, if only out of a sense of professional duty to keep informed with the "real news" in the USA, the USA being a country where only one out of six persons can locate Ukraine on a map.
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