Hey, are you media guys being mean to Vladimir Putin?
The American Conservative seems to think so, and its Senior Editor Rod Dreher is hard on the case, gathering leads in a post cleverly entitled "Putinfreude". Because, dude, if you can coin a meme that ends up going viral, David and Ross will link to you, donchaknow, and you know what happens then, don't you? That's right, bro: big advance.
And...well, aw, shucks, that's not going to fly. Nyet, nyet, nyety-nyet-nyet.
Commenter Paige Belle points out
Putinfreude would mean “joy taken in Putin.” I’m sorry, but the joke does not work.
Nuh-uh, Rod retorts, in his most TACcy Senior Editor retortiness
[NFR: You're being too literal. You know perfectly well it's a play off of the sounds in the word "Schadenfreude." -- RD]
I know how he feels. I'm often gobsmacked myself when I take professional writer Rod Dreher at his literal word.
But, actually, "Putinfreude" ends up serving DreherTAC's purposes twice over, by soliciting the taking of names of those being meanies to the international thug Putin in the service of the inexplicable joy they seem to take in him, as The Washington Free Beacon recently noted (originally linked, I think, by Pik, but I couldn't find the comment; sorry.)
The magazine has recently taken to supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin
In an essay for the January 2014 issue headlined “Russia’s right turn: Moscow has reclaimed its 19th-century conservative role,” William Lind argued, “American conservatives should welcome the resurgence of a conservative Russia” under President Putin, who has passed laws against gay “propaganda.”
The American Conservative also published a pro-Putin column in December by Buchanan, who founded the magazine in 2002.
“While much of American and Western media dismiss him as an authoritarian and reactionary, a throwback, Putin may be seeing the future with more clarity than Americans still caught up in a Cold War paradigm,” Buchanan wrote.
Calls to the American Conservative’s customer service line were unanswered, and editor Daniel McCarthy did not immediately return a request for comment.
So what is it that has DreherTAC forever wishing they knew how to quit Putin but failing?
His strong, Godfather-ly hand in world affairs? Like Syria.
His status as the political head of the church to which at least two of TAC's senior editors belong?
Or just those never-ending beefcake poses?