Righties ♥ Pooty

Eschaton has a round up of the Right’s expressions of love for Vladamir Putin. You can almost feel their hearts, and other body parts, fluttering over Pooty’s assumed manliness. When Mike Huckabee says “I know the only time that Vladimir Putin shivers is when he takes his shirt off in a cold Russian winter,” I want to tell him he and Vlad should just get a room.

Some of this infatuation is gratitude for doing something to make President Obama look bad, but there’s more to it. I found an article from last September on The Secret American Sub-culture of Putin Worshipers that’s fairly disturbing.

Three months ago, Americans for Putin, a Facebook group, sprang up “for Americans who admire many of the policies and the leadership style of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin” and think he “sounds better than the Republicrat establishment.” The group has an eight-point policy platform calling for “a unified [American] national culture,” a “firm stance against Israeli imperialism,” and an opposition to the political correctness it says dominates Washington. Though that group is relatively small (167 likes as of Wednesday afternoon, ticking up every few hours), the Obama’s-so-bad-Putin-almost-looks-good sentiment can be found on plenty of conservative message boards. Earlier this year, when Putin supposedly caught—and kissed—a 46-pound pike fish, posters on Free Republic, a major grassroots message board for the Right, were overwhelmingly pro-Putin:

“I wonder what photoup [sic] of his vacation will the Usurper show us? Maybe clipping his fingernails I suppose or maybe hanging some curtains. Yep manly. I can’t believe I’m siding with Putin,” one wrote. “I have President envy,” another said. “Better than our metrosexual president,” said a third. One riffed that a Putin-Sarah Palin ticket would lead to a more moral United States.

The Americans for Putin facebook page still isn’t that popular. But see also Michael Tomasky, “Why Neocons Love the Strongman“:

Now of course these people can’t openly cheer for Putin, because that would constitute outright treason, but they can test treason’s perimeter fence and probe it for weaknesses. I don’t quite think they want war with Russia; Russia ain’t Iraq. And obviously I don’t believe that if it came to that they’d be against their own country.

But that said, they are certainly undermining the commander in chief at a pivotal moment—not merely protesting his policies, but denouncing his character.

And don’t we suspect that they’re doing this because there’s a little part of them that wants a full-blown crisis? Of course there is. A crisis would vindicate them. A crisis would make the neocons—at risk of being flushed down history’s toilet by Rand Paul, who’s suddenly being called “front runner” by more and more people—relevant inside the Republican Party again.

Tim F. asks why authoritarians love strong daddy figures, and points to this 2008 interview of Jeff Sharlet on his portrait of the right-wing Christian group “The Family” and its naked admiration for … Hitler? Um, yeah.

See also Republican Hypocrites Attack Obama For Not Being a Thug Like Putin.