Well, sure. I only wanted to hear all of this in context— and it doesn’t really help her position IMO.
It really shouldn’t be so hard to very clearly denounce Putin. She makes it seem like a real chore. Like, she has to be squeezed into saying it, and even then, it’s still a little unclear.
I think, to some degree, she’s trying to be diplomatic, but more importantly, she’s coming off as weak to international powers that she should be standing up to. Even if she isn’t some Russian shill, she should be standing up to Putin in a resolute manner that she is failing to do here, and kind of always.
In a very kind reading of Jill Stein, if she wants to take a more diplomatic approach to eastern powers, she needs to learn how to stand up to them. She’s a poor choice just because of how incredibly weak she is in her positions and diplomacy.
I still think it's a nothing burger. It a type of political schadenfreude that always happens. Here the UK you'd get MPs unable to condemn Trump because there's a chance that they'll have a Foreign Office role while he's potentially in power. It comes across as weak but they have to play their cards close to be effective in that role.
With Stein it seems like she hadden't evolved her message on Putin to respond to questions that are current about her party's funding. It's just disappointing, not particularly damning.
With all due respect, this isn’t the UK. And a Presidential candidate can’t be taken seriously if they’re seen to either be, at best, overly capitulatory to our enemies or, at worst, in their pockets.
And when discussing the future leader of the free world, a bit more discretion is called for.
It's the same schadenfreude as Obama bowing to the Saudi King. The rightwing press were having conniptions that the 'leader of the free world' could show any deference to a Middle Eastern leader but it was just normal political niceties.
There are orders of difference between Netanyaho and Putin in terms of future longevity and difficulty in reducing them if that's what the USA wants to do. Putin is a cockroach. For the foreseeable future he is who you're going to have to deal with. So any serious leader will always be running a political calculation as to what their position must be. Stein erred and so sweaty commentators are making hay.
If the Democrats wanted to undermine her position they could easily stop supporting Israel's psychopathy. Any popularity that Stein might be enjoying would wither on the vine.