This NewsNation Now article by Leland Vittert, running on WPRI’s website wouldn’t ordinarily have merited comment, but the headline is enough to make you involuntarily spit out your coffee:  “Putin praised Biden, experts say that could mean he’s rattled.”  The article reinforces the propagandistic character of the headline:

“He is focused,” Putin said. “He understands what he wants to achieve and reaches it very skillfully.”

Experts say that type of praise points to Putin being rattled. …

Putin dismissed what he described as media attempts to cast Biden as physically frail, noting that the 78-year-old U.S. president was in great shape even though the meeting wrapped up a European tour for him that included the G-7 and NATO summits.

The idea that Putin is flattering Biden out of fear or uncertainty is ridiculous.  For a very quick bit of perspective, see Masha Gessen in The New Yorker.  Key point: “To Biden, illusions are a hazard in foreign policy; to Putin, they are its currency.”

A dictator and international instigator like Putin is, if anything, more apt to praise the “skillful” focus of his adversary because he believes the opposite to be true and greatly to his advantage.  Ralph Peters’s contention, in Vittert’s article, that Biden’s lashing out at a journalist was a signal that he wanted to make clear that he wasn’t being taken in by Putin is similarly suspect.  More likely (and perfectly in keeping with decades of Biden lash-outs), he was angered because he is soft and overmatched by the foreign leader and knows it.

All this may be debatable, but an article proclaiming Biden’s prowess with no counterpoint is pure propaganda for the regime.

Featured image from the White House website.