By now, La Russophobe's readers know only too well that if there's one thing she simply can't stand above all else, it's hypocrisy -- when a person says one thing and does the opposite. The Russophile lunatics are particularly given to this form of behavior, as when the eXile tabloid criticized LR for being anonymous in an article with no byline that relied on an anonymous source. Since LR practices anonymity, she doesn't criticize others for engaging in it.

Another recent example is the ZheZhe blog to which La Russophobe has previously made reference. On its home page, ZheZhe claims that its publisher is "not a Russophile." That's a blatant lie. The publisher of ZheZhe not only unquestioningly published the ravings of apparent (and certainly de facto) Kremlin shill Julia Svetlichnaya as she launched a smear campaign against Alexander Litvinenko (LR's questions to Ms. Svetlichnaya on ZheZhe have stood unanswered for weeks now), but the publisher also participates in an e-mail cabal of the most frenzied Russophile extremists, led by Russophile maniac Peter LaVelle [sic, it's our policy to misspell his dishonest, propagandizing name on purpose], heaping fuel upon their fire in the most shameless manner (while not saying a single word about it to readers -- though granted he has precious few).

Here's a sample of the endless tirades spewed forth amidst that cabal against LR by the publisher of ZheZhe (taken from e-mails circulated a few days ago):

It makes no difference if this sort of zealotry (and idiocy) is coming from a blogger, an academic, a lawyer, an international financier, or from the mainstream press. Each of their audiences, though varied in size and scope and with various degrees of crossover amongst themselves, when combined form a larger group with an unfavorably biased and distorted view that serves a specific agenda rather than portraying the objective Russian reality. With all the interest generated on this list regarding Russia and "bad press" im surprised more people on this list are content to ignore LR. O mean really, do the people here think that its only their opinions that matter or get exposure? And just like the NYT's audience is not FOX's audience, this list is not LR's audience. The problem with LR is that there are far, far more of "them" than there are of "us". Sorry to get all cold war-ish...

Us. Them. Cold war. Zealtry. Idiocy. Now LR asks you: Are those the comments of an unbiased, objective observer of Russia? And note the unbridled arrogance. HE knows the "truth" about Russia, and anybody who dares disagree is a quack. Next stop, a Russian psychiatric prison, perhaps?

One member of the e-mail group states: "Yes, there's a lot of tinfoil hattery here but what strikes me is that LsR is picked up (quite often too) by a rather more important blog Publius Pundit and I've seen it quoted elsewhere." It's quite amazing how utterly out of touch with reality a group like this can get. La Russophobe isn't "picked up" by Publius Pundit. She's a member of the creative team at that blog and the material which appears there is written by her and original to that blog.

The sad thing is that some of these cretins are undoubtedly able to convince themselves that they actually aren't biased. You know, like "I'm not pro-Nazi or anything, I'm just saying that you're taking a really one-sided view of the concentration camps and you need to try to see both sides of the issue. After all, Hitler was basically a decent man who was provoked and was just trying to . . . "

This is exactly the way we ended up with Stalin.