Should the United States not send arms to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia because our country would be angered if Russia armed Mexico against Texas?  A strange analogy, no?  

But it's the one Joe Scarborough made on today's Morning Joe: "what is Vladimir Putin's response going to be to the United States arming Ukraine? Certainly I would guess no better than, you know, the Russians arming Mexico with weapons against Texas."

Today's New York Times op-ed page includes a wide-ranging interview on foreign policy that Thomas Friedman conducted with President Obama.  Let's break down some of the low-lights.  Excerpts from interview in italics, with my comments following. And sure, when President Obama said "I don't worry about Israel's survival," he explained his insouciance in terms of Israel's military might.  But was he telling a deeper truth?

Obama made clear that he is only going to involve America more deeply in places like the Middle East to the extent that the different communities there agree to an inclusive politics of no victor/no vanquished.

LOL.  Yup, lions laying down with lambs any day now. So is Obama really saying that the US will not be involved in the Middle East ever again?  And how does he square his statement with the attack he ordered on ISIS?  Isn't that all about vanquishing them? More after the jump.

David Remnick, on Tuesday’s Charlie Rose show, actually compared state-controlled Russian TV anchors to Glenn Beck. The editor of the New Yorker magazine told the PBS host that Vladimir Putin benefits from “a media that’s completely in the hands of the state” and then went on to liken pro-Putin anchors to the former conservative Fox News host and current CEO of The Blaze.

Remnick: “Imagine that Glenn Beck were in every anchor chair but he was appointed by the President of the United States. It’s, it’s that perverse. The sense of ‘they are out to get us’ is profound. And people who used to be on the margins, people who used to be on the kind of nutty margins of the discussion, have now been empowered to be on television, and are very forceful voices.” (video after the jump)

MSNBC is nothing if not consistent. On the July 23 edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports, the NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent invited David Remnick of The New Yorker on to discuss Putin and his propaganda machine.

Much to Mitchell’s delight, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist did so by comparing ruthless authoritarian Vladimir Putin to none other than the popular conservative radio host Glenn Beck. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]

During the Bush era, the Left were wont to remind us that "dissent is patriotic" and being intensely critical of the president was a hallmark of a vibrant democracy, especially on matters of foreign policy and national defense. But in the Obama Era, especially in a crucial midterm election year, well, not so much.

On the July 21 Hardball, guest host Steve Kornacki brought on Mother Jones magazine writer David Corn and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to grouse about how Republicans who have been critical of President Obama's handling of Russia vis-a-vis the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Moscow-backed political unrest in Ukraine. "There was a time when politics stopped at the water's edge. That disappeared, apparently, on January 20, 2009," Capehart whined in a segment entitled "Blame Obama First."