So, like, the other day, there were these allegations about Donald Trump allegedly doing something alleged with allegedly Russian prostitutes, allegedly. The allegations could be fake, could be fact; that is not the concern of this post.

The concern is that Vladimir Putin felt it necessary to come to Donald's aid by saying that whoever put those allegations together is/are "worse than prostitutes".

Let's just take a moment to take in this putdown. To call them "girls of loose morals", as he did, is kind of so last century, isn't it? (Although why should I be surprised? Clearly Vlad prefers the strongman, authoritarian environment he grew up in to the more evolved one we now live in.) In the first place, they are not "girls", they are women. In the second place, how does he know anything about their personal morals? Are they murderesses? Fraudsters? Are they harming or hurting the people they consensually have sex with? How are their morals any looser than those of people who text while driving, or break the speed limit, and accidentally kill an innocent family? And besides, which occupation is not without some moral greyness? I wrote ads for a living for a while - some might say that is pretty immoral in some ways. What about lawyers defending the guilty? Not exactly morally unambiguous, right? Prostitutes are trying to make a living, like everyone else.

Okay, I acknowledge there are still many people in the world whose morals are very 19th century. Maybe even most people. But even making that hypothetical assumption, what is confusing is that uncle Vlad then actually seems to stick up for the people he has just insulted, because he goes on to say about these girls of loose morals that "ours are undoubtedly the best in the world".

It's an interesting choice of words, to say that this assessment is "undoubted". One can't help wondering, who exactly doesn't doubt it? And what proof do they, or he, have? 

But that is just a fascinating little digression from the main point here, which is the contradictory logic of Bad Vlad. Is he giving a back-handed compliment or a back-handed insult? Is he ashamed or proud of these women? Are they a reason to pity Russia or visit it? Would he like to be rid of them, or to have more of them? Because essentially what he is saying is this:

Prostitues are shit (and I don't think he means good shit). But no one has shit like us.