CNSNews.com wasn’t the only ConWeb outlet to fawn over a foreign leader attacking America in a speech. Hanne Nabintu Herland echoed CNS in lovingly recounting Vladimir Putin’s attacks in an October speech in her Nov. 3 WorldNetDaily column:
Since Russia is now our much talked about enemy, one would assume that the Western media would scrutinize every word said by President Putin at the influential 2021 Valdai Discussion Club in Russia. But not so.
As the Valdai event in Sochi focused on the individual, values and the role of the state, sharing the vision of modern Russia, negative focus on COVID-19 in Russian hospitals was seemingly the only popular topic the same week in Western mainstream media.
This, of course, effectively halted any intelligent discussions in the West on topics such as conservatism versus progressivism, totalitarianism versus citizens’ rights, the importance of not focusing on race and skin color, the need to combat racism, inequality and important topics such as the dire situation in Afghanistan, all addressed at the Valdai Discussion Club.
President Putin held talks with journalists for over three hours at Valdai, rivaling his well-known annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum open talks.
In fact, the Valdai Discussion Club is little more than a pro-Putin think tank, meaning there’s little actual “discussion” going on there, and any journalists who failed to toe the party line were likely strongly encouraged to do so lest they get the Navalny treatment.
Herland first highlighted Putin’s remarks on Afghanistan, then moved to what she really wanted to hype:
The second main topic at the 2021 Valdai Discussion Club was President Putin preaching Russian conservatism as a remedy against the extreme progressive, left-wing wokeness that now destabilizes the Western hemisphere. Putin noted: “It is with puzzlement that in the West today we see practices that Russia has left in the distant past.”
The president said that it is very surprising to see how Western countries turn to an aggressive dogmatism in the struggle for equality against discrimination that borders on absurdity. While opposing racism is a noble cause, the culture of abolition turns into a reverse discrimination based on skin color.
“People who dare to say that men and women still exist as a biological fact are almost ostracized. … Not to mention the simply monstrous fact that children today are taught from a young age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa. Let’s call a spade a spade: This simply verges on crimes against humanity under the banner of progress,” he said, as quoted by The Moscow Times.
Putin added: “In the coming era of global readjustment, which may last quite long and whose final outlook is unknown, moderate conservatism is the most reasonable line of conduct,” stating that Russia will be guided by the ideology of healthy conservatism. This is seen as opposed to the extremism that leads to political collapse.
Herland apparently doesn’t believe that Putin’s crackdown on political opposition and even freedom of religion is not “extremism.”
Herland went on to gush: “He described the current worldwide political and social upheaval by quoting a Chinese proverb: ‘God forbid living in a time of change,’ which is precisely what we are now experiencing.” She didn’t mention that Putin forbids his countrymen to change if it involves him losing power. Perhaps she wants his corrupt authoritarianism to take over in America.