L'adversaire des Russes que nombre de Francais diabolisent comme une "marionnette", le "comique Docteur Folamour", ou "le perroquet du Caucase"

Le Monde's Piotr Smolar has an interview with Mikheïl Saakachvili. Needless to say, Le Monde's readers opine (sic) that Georgia's president is an American poodle; that he is a puppet; that he is "the Caucasian parrot"; that he is a liar; that he is dangerous; that he is a warmonger; that he is the equivalent of Dugashvili (Stalin); that he is unstable; that he suffers from mental trouble; and that he is a "comic Dr. Strangelove". That it is in Europe's interest that Russia remain a great power. And that "Medvedev et Poutine ne sont pas de vrais démocrates, mais eux, au moins, savent garder leur sang-froid !" All of which leads a rare reader (by the name of Raboliot) to state:

A lire les commentaires haineux à l'encontre de Saakachvili sur ce forum, je constate que le service communication de l'ambassade d'URSS, pardon de Russie, à mis ses plus brillants sujets derrière leur PC...C'est vrai que le problème d'une démocratie à leurs frontières est abominable et Annonciateur de catastrophes.. Il faut donc discréditer Saakachvili : C'est un suppôt des USA, un "cadavre politique" "un malade" on ressort les vieilles rengaines apprises dans les écoles du KGB.

Xavier adds that

J'ai l'impression de voir dans la plupart des commentaires postés ici qu'une mascarade de la propagande "soviétique". Le mieux pour ceux qui tentent de décrédibiliser la Géorgie étant tout simplement de faire passer son président pour fou, voire mieux de le traiter de "connard", on évite ainsi bien facilement le débat et la vérité qui se trame actuellement. Car qui est le plus fou des deux? celui qui recherche l'intégrité de son territoire ou bien celui qui l'étend?

While Ilias points out that

Être pro-Poutin par anti-américanisme aveugle c est comme être pro-Hitler par anti-anglisme a la question tchécoslovaque en 1938.

Obama le Bon, McCain la Brute, et Bush le Truand

As they never tire telling us, the French are always masters of nuance as well as the champions in always finding just the exact literary simile that fits. This was proven again tonight, when France 2 (!) broadcast a news item (!) on political TV ads in America, comparing leading politicians to the characters of a… spaghetti western (!?!)

Using the emblematic characters of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the entirely serious-minded (sic), profound (sic), and thoughtful (sic) news channel proceeds to tell viewers that political ads in America are misleading and even totally false, whether it's the ad of Obama — compared to The Good — depicting John McCain saying America's economy is sound or the ad of John McCain — compared to the Ugly — stating that Obama wanted sex ed in kindergarten before toddlers could even read…

Who, then, is the Bad — known in the French title as the Crook or the Gangster? (In French, as in Italian, the order of the title is The Good, the Ugly, the Bad.) France 2 (on whose website, incidentally, a poll shows 52% of respondents wanting French troops out of Afghanistan — as opposed to 40% in favor of them staying) mentions the Swift Boat ad of four years ago — "a total lie" against John Kerry — which allowed for the victory of… (you got it) the Crook…