I was thinking along these same lines. When the dog story came out, my first reaction was, "That's the kind of stuff we used to do".
More and more I seem to have conversations that start with, " I know about Putin's history and that he's probably had more people killed than we'll ever know, but..."
And then I compare Russia with the US. Nobody ignores Russia or doesn't take them seriously (except us it seems), but we can no longer say the same for the US. So much of that is directly related to the perception of the respective leaders.
I'm not just talking about perception like Putin's hunting and martial arts photos versus Obama on the bicycle, but perception photos actually related to what they do related to their governments. We have Putin being photographed taking a ride in a research submersible (exploring frontiers), and Obama photo ops at freakin' arugula farms.
Putin looks like the head of a state that is powerful and moving forward. Obama has guys ride skateboards down the White House halls. It's adults versus adolescents. It's also not that Obama has bad PR people. He has good PR people who happen to be pushing an image that sadly resonates with a growing segment of our population. They'd rather see a photo op of our president in a "safe space" than in a ride along in an F-18, or even a Hurricane Hunter or something. That would be all macho and not gendercistran neutral.
It could very well be that people like those of us here are just a dying segment of the US population. I guess the bright side, if this continues, is that most of us won't be around when China, Russia, or even freakin' North Korea just walk in and take the keys to the house because we're no longer strong enough to stop them, or worse, just don't care. Stupid American Exceptionalism.
ETA: I also just read the story about Obama's speech urging foreign leaders "...to not be like America." I doubt Putin would ever give a speech talking about what a crappy place Russia is.
