Sorry, that just shows that cluelessness can be found on Mudcat also. "A good talking to" is not precisely the way to get Putin, a proud man, to concede on anything. That idea is faintly absurd, as anybody who thinks about it should realize. And exchanging insults is not actually very promising either. Look how well it works on Mudcat. If this is your argument in favor of Hillary, it's no mystery why she would be a disaster. And as somebody who's deathly afraid of being thought "weak", she might well behave this way. Good thing we probably will not have to find out.

There is not much leverage we have with Russia at this point. What we want to do is somehow try to lessen Europe's dependency on Russian natural resources--a trend which at this point is going the wrong way.

And actually encourage (and oversee, if possible) the continued disposal of Russian nuclear weapons, which Bush at one point stymied since his corporate sponsors, who would have been responsible for workers compensation, did not want to pay it. (I started a thread on this).

Bush has been the anti-TR: he speaks loudly....   And Mudcatters, amazingly enough, think that Hillary's continuation of this is just fine.

It's time to start thinking about relations with Russia. And bluster is not the answer. I don't claim to have the solution to this problem. But "a good talking to", it's safe to say, is just about the worst possible answer.

A good start would be rejecting Bush's go-it-alone attitude and trying to make common cause with other nations who are also uneasy at Putin's attitude.