I’m working through a number of Putin biographies in prep for an “Ideas Have Consequences” series. (You can subscribe via the link in my bio.)
The problem for anyone venturing to understand him is the deliberate deception on both sides: on the part…
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…of Putin who has skillfully mixed fact with fiction to lead would-be investigators astray, and biographers whose otherwise sound judgments have been affected by the considerable gravitational force of our current political climate.
What emerges are wildly divergent…
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…portrayals of a man the West would do well to understand.
But understanding Putin is not easy in a world where his critics present him as insane or a modern Stalin hellbent on resurrecting the Soviet Union (he is neither), and his supporters venerate him as a savior…
Today I paid an unexpected visit to the USAID headquarters in Cairo.
The last few years I have shown you how USAID organized, financed, & ran the invasion across our southern border.
Today I visited their fortress-like offices in Egypt….
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Approaching the gate manned by Egyptian guards, we bluffed our way in and drove through the su*cide b*m8er barriers. This was aided, no doubt, by the fact that we were in a Mercedes (the diplomatic car of choice) and I look unmistakably American.
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My driver waited in the car while I walked the perimeter looking for the entrance.
There is no USAID signage of any kind on this citadel of corrupt bureaucracy….
I was 21. A truck driver during the day and a student at night, I was asked to teach Sunday school at a little rural Alabama church that met only twice a month.
You see, the membership was old and few in number. Many thought the church…
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…should be closed. But these ornery old people liked their church and didn’t care what anyone else thought they should or shouldn’t do.
One of the members had heard me speak and asked if I would be their pastor.
Pastor?
I didn’t know anything about that, but I agreed…
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…to come every other week to teach Sunday school for a couple of months until they could find someone else. Amused by my youth and energy, they had no intentions of replacing me and two months stretched into two years.