--- Patrick Bond <pbond at sn.apc.org> wrote:
> Ah, what a let down. I used to go drinking with
> McFaul when he was doing his
> (Oxford) PhD research in Zimbabwe, late 1980s. I
> thought he might turn into
> a Montana senator or something ...
>
McFaul is the eXile's arch enemy:
McFaul For It!
Want to know which way the winds of change are blowing? All you have to do is pop in your Scorps cassette, raise your lighter, and yes, keep your eyes peeled for the latest quote from eXile arch-nemesis Michael McFaul, whitewasher and power-groveler extraordinaire. Why's that? Because McFaul can always be relied on to go the way of American power, left or right, no matter how contradictory he appears to be.
We've collected some of his rare "Then and Now" quotes to offer you a veritable power ballad of McFaul-ian riffs on the evolution of Russian democracy. What is revealed is not anything substantive about the development of Russian democracy, but rather one man's desperate attempts to play teacher's pet, first to the neo-liberal Clinton Administration, and now, to the far-right Bush Administration.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, raise your lighters up high, for you are about to witness...The Winds of Change. Notice if you will how McFaul's assessment of Russia's elections just happens to coincide with the views of [NAME OF CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENT]. So ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to...Mike "The Weathervane" McFaul!
PUTIN AND DEMOCRACY Then (when Clinton was trying to woo Putin):
MICHAEL McFAUL: I think it is a slam dunk now that [Putin] will be elected but he will be elected because 75% of the Russian people support what he is doing...
DIMITRI SIMES: [W]e were kind of hopeful that Yeltsin's successor would be a more vigorous and dynamic version of great democrat and Sakharov. Instead we got a younger version of Uri Andropov.
MICHAEL McFAUL: There is a giant difference between Uri Andropov and Vladimir Putin in that Vladimir Putin will be elected in a free and fair election in March.
DIMITRI SIMES: I have not seen fair elections in Russia under Yeltsin.
MICHAEL McFAUL: Compared to what? Compared to Andropov and the Soviet period.
January 3, 2000 (PBS NewsHour)
Now: "The Kremlin is never serious about democracy," says Michael McFaul, a Stanford University veteran Russia expert who is now in Moscow. "They use these quasi-democratic mechanisms to achieve their political objectives, which are, first and foremost, to eliminate pluralism."
December 8, 2003 (Christian Science Monitor)
STATE INFLUENCE IN ELECTIONS Then: "In the [1996] presidential election, Yeltsin grossly violated the campaign finance limits, the media openly propagated Yeltsin's cause, and counting irregularities again appeared in Chechnya and some other national republics; but most agreed that these transgressions did not influence the outcome of the vote. [...]Both of these elections [for the presidency and the Duma] were relatively free and relatively fair."
Hoover Digest. 1997. No. 4
Now: "The way the state used (administrative resources) to make independent political parties weaker and the Duma more subservient is apparent," said Michael McFaul, an expert in Russian politics for the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "That, to me, is not a good sign for democracy."
December 9, 2003 (Seattle Times)
Then: "Despite all the claims of impending fraud, postponement and military coups, Russia's historic and unprecedented election for head of state happened on time, according to the law and without falsification... Russian democracy is still alive and growing... in this historic and ultimately triumphant year for democrats and democracy in Russia."
July 6, 1996 (Moscow Times)
Now: The state's use of its influence in the elections was part of the "negative trend of ... managed democracy," said Michael McFaul, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
December 8, 2003
(Associated Press)
BIASED MEDIA Then: "The free and independent media turned out to be not so free and independent," Michael McFaul, senior analyst at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, said Friday. "It will have to re-earn its credentials, and I think it will, and that they will come back."
But McFaul sided with those observers who considered the media's pro-Yeltsin bias understandable. "We have to remember, the media was operating under extraordinary circumstances," he said. "We are not in a consolidated democracy here."
July 6, 1996 (Moscow Times)
Now #1: (This was when Bush and Putin had just bonded): "Revolutionaries interested in the triple transition -- decolonization, capitalism and democracy -- could even make rational arguments for why NTV (that is, the real NTV) had to go. Vladimir Gusinsky is no Andrei Sakharov."
January 28, 2002 (Moscow Times)
Now #2 (This was after Bush and Putin started to fall out): "Since coming to power, [Putin] and his government have seized control of Russia's last independent national television networks and silenced or changed the editorial teams at several national newspapers and weeklies."
September 21, 2003 (LA Times)
WAR Then: "After Chechnya, many analysts predicted that Russia's flirtation with democracy was over. However... respect for the democratic process by Russian politicians is greater now than perhaps at any time in Russian history."
July 4, 1995 (Moscow Times)
Now: "In Chechnya, Putin's armed forces continue to abuse human rights on a massive scale."
September 21, 2003 (LA Times)
Then: "The question after Chechnya is not whether to give aid or not. Rather, the question is what kind of aid to give."
January 29, 1995 (Moscow Times)
Now: "[Mr Putin's] policy on the Iraq war gave him an opportunity to stand with the so-called anti-imperialists - a cheap normative victory for [a country] that has won few normative points from the international community in recent years."
May 27, 2003
(St. Petersburg Times)
Then: "Washington must use every means available to try to prevent the invasion of Grozny."
October 26, 1999 (Moscow Times)
Now: "The process of defeating the enemies of liberty is twofold: Crush their regimes or the regimes that harbor them and then build new democratic, pro-Western regimes in the vacuum."
February 4, 2002 (Washington Post)
DEMOCRACY'S IMAGE PROBLEM Then: "Several factors account for Russian democracy's image problem in the West. First, it is new and indeed imperfect. As the recent government change demonstrated, Russia's constitution gives too much power to the president. In addition, Russian political parties are marginal political actors, civil society is weak, the rule of law is still a work in progress and the press is becoming less independent as large corporations take control of most media outlets.
"Yet despite these warts, it is striking what Russia's new democracy has accomplished in the past three years. In December 1995, Russian citizens voted in parliamentary elections. In two rounds of voting in June and July 1996, voters then elected a president. Despite calls for delay and postponement, these two elections were held on time, under law, and were considered relatively free and fair."
May 23, 1998 (Moscow Times)
Now: "Whether we should continue to call it democracy I don't know. I am less and less confident that one should."
December 8, 2003
(Associated Press)
Dude, you gotta admit, when it comes to lying or toeing the new Party Line, McFaul totally wails. We know that we had chills running up our spine. Whitewashing Yeltsin's grossly anti-democratic elections was his specialty until the Bush Administration decided to get "realistic" with Putin. Now, McFaul is the leading harsh critic, abandoning a previous commitment to "optimism" in favor of the "doom-and-gloom school" he once attacked. It may seem strange that McFaul has spent the better part of his career doing PR work on behalf of Russia's most reviled leader, then switching sides and PRing the media against Russia's most popular leader, all in the name of democratic values. Why? Simple. Michael McFaul serves The Man, and when the Winds of Change tell him it's time to change his tune, McFaul is the first to follow.
Michael McFaul, you rock.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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