April 19, 2009 By James Kimer

The Human Potemkin Village

georgewill.jpgGeorge Will seems to be testing some new comedic material in one of his latest columns, bruising the Obama administration over making a priority of getting a nukes treaty with Russia.  He calls Dmitry Medvedev a “human potemkin village” (which we think may be taking things a little far … see our recent video of expert interviews), and argues that given Nicholas Eberstadt’s recent articles about Russia depopulation and alcoholism, there’s really not quite so much of a need for Obama to focus on giving away the farm to Russia.

This blog has frequently written about the need for a more expansive dialogue on values beyond just security and defense issues, but the idea that just because Russia is drunk and dying that they couldn’t sell one of their 2,000+ nuclear warheads to an extremist is a little hard to swallow.

I always thought George Will’s older material was much more funny – like his passionate denunciation of blue jeans and climate change denial.