John Pastorek

Fighting tooth decay, gum disease, and man-up offense one day at a time. STL PHX DAY #TSSA. Workin' it Out.

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

Everyone’s gotta play a role. Glad I found a big part of mine. @Brace4Impact46

[Noah @NoahKingJr]

Me to Claude: "Make no errors. DO NOT HALLUCINATE. YOU ARE AN EXPERT SOFTWARE ENGINEER "

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@jordan_ross_8F OPENCLAW

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@spittinchiclets Hard to board a plane with your head down, much less avoid a check from Brayden Schenn.

If he keeps his head on a swivel, should be fine to board and exit an aircraft.

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@aguynamedJEHLS Amazing. Also dream of this moment - Keep living it brother!

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@MCLA @Jac_Coyne thank you for your investment into the league and the players my man! Cheers to whatever is next for you 🍻

[Chaminade Basketball @CCPBasketball]

Nothing more they can say except for CHAMPION! Congrats @jaytatum0 on your NBA Championship! #EstoVir #NadeBoyz

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@Niner_m @TuftsLacrosse 🦷👷🏼‍♂️🖤

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

In the face of defeat, let perseverance be your guide.

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

@TaylorTwellman Is that Cameron from Ferris bueller’s day off

[Julian Waller 📖 @JulianWaller]

A few thoughts on the Tucker-Putin interview:

Having watched the interview last night, I've been very interested in seeing the reaction here on this site. A lot of people have focused on 'Putin as an autistic history nerd' (good memes here), while others have stuck to variations on 'look how his history is a lie and bizarre and strange' or 'he whiffed the PR opportunity and didn't give MAGA anything.'

Ok. The former is funny, the middle is standard signaling and positioning, and the latter is US politics brain. Fine! But there's really tremendous data in here if we want to look seriously. Some points below.

First, the most important thing is indeed the half-hour history lesson. Not only did Putin start with this, and refuse to be interrupted, he even made a big show of gifting documents supporting his arguments to Tucker. What this tells us is that the history component to the Russo-Ukrainian War is not just a point of legitimation or a general casus belli, but the motivating factor for VVP personally. That's really big!

I've argued for a year now that we should understand the proximate cause of the war to be Vladimir Putin's deepening historical obsessions, his sense of personal grievance, and the unique isolation that allowed this to fester in the runup to 2022. You can find an article making that case here: https://t.co/FeRynDE2l9. If you've taken my undergraduate course on Russian Politics, it's there as well. This interview is strong supporting data for that framing. Note how often Putin dismisses NATO expansion as the reason for action, as well as how much he does not care about Ukrainian democracy qua democracy. He doesn't even think it is a democracy (note the coup discussions).

Rather, he's clearly motivated - then and now - by historical concerns most of all. And this is important, which some observers may not quite get. He was not always like this! That is, the long rants about history that justify political action have become more and more common in the last ten years, and especially the last four or five. Which fits a model of growing obsession - which, incidentally, also aligns well with Putin's post-2012 sense that only he can stably rule Russia, and that he wants to bequeath a legacy. Tucker wasn't able to get an answer to the core question - why 2022 and not earlier - but this is good material for a obsession interpretation.

Second, another element that came out strongly was Putin's sense of personal insult and snubbing. He is butthurt by his world leader colleagues. We have dozens of minutes of him talking about the Bushes, about documents signed by the French and Germans, about negotiations generally - all of which end with Russia not getting what was promised or it expected. That could be read simply as justification for Russia's actions (i.e., the hypocrisy of the West) but what is mostly communicated, verbally and through body language, is that Putin himself feels slighted, and that he does not understand why others do not see the world, and the consequences of events, as clearly as he does. This is also quite interesting.

There is very little reason to believe this interview is anything less than the sincere views of Putin himself, as a smarter-than-average Russian boomer who is trying to explain why he's right, why he's been aggrieved, and why the other sides are just so stupid and shortsighted. He's booming really hard, it's very evident. He's not sharing everything, but he's telling you that he's not sharing everything with a knowing, paternalistic smile while he says it. And he really wants to get it through your thick skull what actually matters. Rurik, Yaroslav the Wise, 1654, Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Soviet Union and the border changes, leaders just not being reasonable, etc etc.

Third, I don't think we can understand this interview as some sort of functionalist strategic communication exercise at all. VVP clearly did not care to talk about US political issues, he did not "throw red meat to MAGA" or whatever, he did not rise to the bait several times to get on a cleaner messaging narrative that would sell with an international audience of illiberal or West-skeptical types. At all! It was the above, which means this interview was about what Vladimir Putin himself thought rather than what he thought would sell best. That's incredibly unusual for an interview like this.

We didn't get anything about cancel culture, or gender ideology, or Biden being senile, or the US being this evil tentacled hegemon that threatens global peace. He was actually incredibly circumspect on that sort of thing. Much more so than in other venues in the recent past. This was Putin as pedagogue-in-chief, trying to educate Tucker not only about history, but also about how the world actually works. Look to the wandering discussion on the Orange Revolution, Yanukovych, the various negotiations, for that. The personal resentment comes out here in a distinct way, as disappointment and confusion as to why other international partners just don't get it the way VVP does.

Truly, the most framed or set-up part of this interview was the point about the spring 2022 negotiations (note his arg that instead of the Battle of Kyiv being lost, it was a part of a negotiation that got cut short by Johnson's intervention - an interesting assertion). And Tucker got him to talk about future potential negotiations as well. That was also enlightening, as it reiterated Putin's world-weary points that the other side doesn't get it and is stubborn, and that there is a 'reasonable' way out if only leaders would be clear-eyed.

This is important to keep in mind, especially as Putin seems quite confident the war is going well enough that he can just wait for negotiations to inevitably appear. Also note his regular recourse to proceduralism - negotiations are detailed, complicated, have many moving parts. The bureaucratic KGB and legal background always shines through with Putin at the end of the day.

Finally, as I've noted, this interview was pretty strange. Tucker tried to move things in a way that fit his own views (NATO expansion, the 'who runs the US' question, demonic forces on earth (?)), which was pretty cringe. But he actually did a decent job overall (sorry!). He asked about Gershkovich and pushed fairly hard all things considered, he got steamrolled by VVP but managed to barely hold on given the very meandering discussion (Putin's framing of 2004 and 2013-14 is genuinely difficult to understand if you don't already know the events quite well), he didn't crash the interview so bad that it ended early, he figured out he had a unique opportunity to let Putin talk, and in doing so he provided us a unique window into VVP.

It turns out that Putin says the same thing to Tucker as he does to Ru journos, with even more Putinsplaining. Which is illuminating! The history thing is the real deal, as is his belief that negotiations (in Russia's favor and in accordance with Putin's own sense of what is reasonable) are possible. Both of these things are really important for us to get at analytically.

I'm still thinking about this, but those are some topline takeaways as I process it this morning.

[John Pastorek @NotoriousDMD]

Should have signed off with “on to Cincinnati”

[Savage @Savageboston]

Incredible:

Bill Belichick took out a full page add in the Boston Globe today thanking all the Patriots fans for 24 years.

“No where in America are pro sports fans as passionate as in New England and for 24 years, I was blessed to feel your passion and power”

THANK YOU COACH!!

[Adam Sandler @AdamSandler]

A true great man. Great dad. Great actor. Great athlete. So much fun to be around always. Smart as hell. Loyal as hell. Funny as hell. Loved his sons more than anything. What a guy!! Everyone loved him. My wife and I had the best times with him every time we saw him. Love to his entire family and Carl will always be known as a true legend.

[Will Compton @_willcompton]

“It’s not human nature to be great.

It’s human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by.

That is normal.

When you have something good happen, it’s the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.”

Nick Saban

[Chris Kent @chriskent23]

We often wonder why we can’t get our best & brightest to run the government. Then when he @VivekGRamaswamy shows up we reject him because why?

1. Valedictorian in HS
2. Biology degree from Harvard.
3. Law degree from Yale.
4. Close to a Billionaire by 36.
5. Best selling Author of 3 books.
6. Works harder than any executive or politician.
7. Strong family values & a very smart wife that also went to Yale and is an accomplished surgeon.
8. Confident but at the same time humble & empathetic.

You would be ecstatic if this was the guy running your company but for some reason you can’t get behind him running the government? 🤔

[Chris Carapezza @Chris_Carapezza]

WAPO reporter doubles down: You didn’t say that you condemn white supremacy though.

She immediately regrets it.

@VivekGRamaswamy isn’t going to play the game.

[NotKennyRogers @NotKennyRogers]

34 years ago today, a food chemist from Illinois named Clark Wilhelm Griswold put down $7,500 for an inground swimming pool.

[Hutton Jackson @HuttonJackson]

The best course of action is to send Lindenwood alum Graeme Hossack to "persuade" them to change their mind.