Note: I had to reflect for a full day over what I viewed.
First, Putin rambled on for 127 minutes, with not much of value except 25-odd minutes of Russian history. If you didn't know much on Russian history....it might have been of some marginal value. If you were to dwell on Russian history....I'd spend the time on Catherine the Great, or Peter the Great...but you assume about a quarter of their dramatics are either sexual in nature or pretty provocative stuff.
Second, nothing much covered over dead Wagner guy (Prigozhin). Might have been interesting to ask but it failed to occur. Might have been nice to have Putin drop a tear or two about his departed 'friend' and conversations they shared.
Third, by the end....you came to realize that it was a rare interview where nothing seemed scripted or made up with puff-questions. I'm not saying Putin is bright, but against the backdrop of so many politicians existing in Europe or North America....or crappy CNN interviews....it felt like an authentic interview.
Fourth, by the end (127 minutes)....if you were assessing me or if I had bought all the Putin BS....the answer is that I'm more or less where I was....before the interview. My level of skepticism preventing me from buying into this? Yeah.
I see a lot of poor decisions made by Putin and his military staff....assuming they had a first-class military (they don't), the Nazi-thing still bothering them almost eighty years later, and the economic landscape so screwed-up that literally no Russian believes anything they hear.
Fifth and final, Putin believes his BS and all the layers around it. After years and years of being enclosed....Putin has one single version of reality, and it does not matter how anyone (from Scholz of Germany, or CNN, or Biden, or Trump) sees reality.
Putin speaks his reality to the Russian public, and I would imagine around 30-percent reflect that same reality. The rest just shake their head....get on with work, and sip vodka to get by the daily frustrations.
For the fired-up anti-Putin folks disturbed over the interview....ask yourself....was there anything that transformed people one way or another? It's like bringing up the 14 seasons of the TV show 'Dallas' and asking people is there anything from the 300 various hours that transformed you? The Putin-Carlson two-hour show was like that.
NOTE: That moment when Putin suggested that Carlson was CIA....I got the impression that Carlson tried not to act surprised or smile. Is Carlson CIA? They probably have 20,000 people on some contract for some purpose....so yeah, it might be true.
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