Potemkin Country, Potemkin President

George Will explores a Potemkin village writ large, “The Incredible Shrinking Russia.”

Meanwhile, AP’s Steven Hurst compares Obama — favorably! — to the last Soviet dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev. (Which Hurst, or his spell check program, anglicizes as “Michael”, oddly enough.)

Incidentally, as Will writes, “America’s ‘progressive’ president has some peculiarly retro policies.” That’s a topic that Michael Barone explored in depth at the DC Examiner, and during my interview with him last month, on PJM Political.

Update: Don Surber asks a good question: “Who is the Ronald Reagan in APland? Osama bin Laden? Hugo Chavez? Robert Mugabe?”