UPDATE: Say it ain’t so Vladimir!
Putin’s Diving Exploit Was a Setup, Aide Says – NYTimes.com
MOSCOW — Vladimir V. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, says now-famous television video of the Russian prime minister diving to the bottom of a bay and discovering ceramic jugs from the sixth century was, in fact, a setup.
via Putin’s Diving Exploit Was a Setup, Aide Says – NYTimes.com.
As entertaining as the article is, some of the highly recommended comments made me laugh out loud. There’s something great about our collective ability to find Putin mesmerizing… Yes, it’s a show, but everyone’s in on that knowledge, which makes encountering the latest episode feel like hearing a Chuck Norris joke, or watching a Dos Equis commercial (both of which are mentioned among said comments).
I was thinking of the Dos Equis guy too when the image of Putin with two amphorae in his hands came out. Wasn’t one of the tag lines once that the most interesting man in the world could speak Russian in French? But it is a sign of remarkable confidence that they could set this scene up, then admit it was a set up. Putin is the real Teflon President.