When Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in December, he used an argument I hear a lot in my travels in Europe: Putin's not as bad as Obama.
"He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Trump said when asked on MSNBC about Putin's alleged killing of political enemies and journalists.
Some European conservatives will flat out tell me that Obama is more dangerous than Putin. Really? Then why aren't Putin's enemies staying in Russia? And why have so many been murdered or died suspiciously?
I do think Barack Obama has been the worst president in U.S. history, both because of his agenda and his ineptitude. But opposing Putin has become a terminal medical condition. Russian men and women who become a threat or a liability to the Russian president tend to die suddenly and under suspicious conditions.
Sometimes their otherwise healthy hearts blow out, or they turn suicidal, or they drink deadly radioactive material or run into a stray bullet.
The former executive director of the disgraced Russian Anti-Doping Agency died of a massive heart attack Sunday after skiing. Fifty-two-year-old Nikita Kamaev's death comes two months after resigning amidst a doping scandal that had engulfed Russia's track and field program.
His friends say Kamaev never complained of heart problems. Photos of him show a man that looked very healthy. Kamaev expired less than two weeks after another former Russian anti-doping figure, Vyacheslav Sinev, died suddenly.
Russian millionaire and Putin crony Mikhail Lesin turned up dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel last year, also from a heart attack. Some think Lesin was about to rat on Putin to the FBI.
Last month a British investigation concluded that Putin "probably approved" of the murder of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was living in London when his tea was spiked with radioactive polonium during a meeting with two Russians.
Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who had also fled to England and accused the Kremlin of killing Litvinenko, was found dead inside his house with a noose around his neck in 2013.
Boris Nemtsov, leader of a liberal opposition group, was shot dead last year as he walked home from dinner near the Kremlin.
Several journalists have also died.
Because of his stand against Islam and the European Union project, some view Putin as sort of the new defender of liberty and Christendom in Europe. And by the way some Christians talk, you’d think Putin could chair the national Sunday school convention.
Some cite his stand against homosexuality in Russia. A Christian website reports, "There have been some prophecies about a great revival coming out of Russia, and many believe that Putin is paving the way for Russia to rise as a spiritual giant."
Stop it.
Putin is not a good guy. He's a crook and a murderer by extension if not directly.
Professor Karen Dawisha has meticulously documented, using Russian sources, how Putin turned the Russian state into his own personal criminal enterprise in her book, Putin's Kleptocracy.
Walter Clemens, a professor emeritus of political science at Boston University and an associate at Harvard's Russian Center says Putin should be indicted and brought before the International Criminal Court.
And then there are the heart attacks.
Putin is apparently only "good" if you're not a threat. And that's not good. Comparisons to a terrible U.S. president don't help him.