Why did the West lose Russia?

[August]

Originally Posted by astvitaliy1982

А сколько сидит на своем посту Ангела Меркель, Сейед Али Хосейни Хаменеи или хотя бы Теодоро Обианг Нгема Мбасого... Давай вспомним вашего президента - Франклин Делано Рузвельт. Ваш президент оставил достойный след в истории. Уверен, если бы Рузвельт не был так хорош, то не оставался бы президентом так долго.
Чем тебе так не нравится Путин?) Чем он лично тебе так не угодил?)))

Edge Translated:
‎

And how many sits in his post Angela Merkel, Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei or at least Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo ... Let's remember your president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Your president has left a worthy mark on history. I'm sure if Roosevelt hadn't been so good, he wouldn't have stayed president for so long. ‎
‎ Why don't you like Putin so much?) Why did he personally not please you so much?)))‎

I thought we were comparing the USA with Russia, not Russia with a bunch of foreign potentates. Maybe you have a point about the Germans and the others but they ain't US and we ain't them so again no comparison.

As for Roosevelt yeah he was a good leader but his four consecutive terms in the Oval Office was a situation that has happened only once in our two and a half century old Republic. There were many in the nation at the time who felt so strongly that he had stretched the up to then un-codified rules that they fixed it from ever happening again by amending the US Constitution after his death to prohibit any President from serving more than 2 terms, consecutive or not, ever again. Amending our constitution is a task that is difficult to do by design and one that took a long time to ratify, but they got it done and there hasn't been a repeat of it since.

Notice the difference there Tovarich.

We changed our constitution to limit the Presidential time in office to the historical 2 term limit whereas Russia just changed her constitution to let Putin stay in office for 2 MORE terms. Is it reasonable to expect it will happen again in 12 years if he wants it?

At what point do we start calling Vladimir Putin the Russian "President-For-Life"?

But I guess if you think about it "For Life" is pretty much the historical term limit for Russian rulers no? From the days of the Czars to just before the fall of the Soviet Union did any of your rulers EVER survive leaving power?

I don't really care one way or the other about Putin personally. Him being an ex KGB agent and my former military enemy (Cold War Vet here) doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzy's about the man but as long as he just rules you Russians then he's your problem to fix. Just don't think that he compares with any of our chief executives.