The (Ex) Washington Realist

Andrew Sullivan labels me a pro-Putin realist in linking to my commentary on the Safronov case. Fair enough, it is an accurate shorthand description. Although I never hear anyone described as a "anti-Putin Wilsonian" ... perhaps because that's the default position?

I've received some useful feedback on those pieces. But I am less appreciative of the ones that suggest that I'm going to be in trouble with my Kremlin paymasters (because, after all, no one can have my set of positions on Russia without being a stooge or KGB plant--oh, and by the way, to any aspiring vandals seeking to change my Wikipedia entry, if you are going to make me a KGB agent, I want the rank of at least a major, if not a colonel).

Since I have a surname that many Russians describe as being a "nastoiashchaia russkaia familiia" it is so easy to spread the inneundo that I must be from "over there." I don't see why I have to trot out my familial history in order to establish my bona fides as a commentator on U.S. policy. I'm not a naturalized citizen, I don't hold dual citizenship, I'm not eligible for the citizenship of any other state. Don't like my position, fine; disagree with me on issues. But why would my commentary be any more or any less valid if I had a different last name. My son is directly descended from an officer in the Continental Army. Would my commentary be more "acceptable" if I adopted the persona of my Revolutionary War ancestor-by-marriage?

I'm proud of my ethnic heritage, and I've studied it--warts and all. And I claim the right of every American to know and appreciate where I came from (in ancestral terms) without it making me one less iota of an American.