Bearing the photograph at left, an article entitled "From Russia with Love" on Virginia's DailyPress.com reveals that the state is currently in the midst of a three-month cultural festival called "Virginia Celebrates Russia" which "encompasses a broad range of Russian-themed performances and art exhibitions from January through March. Audiences will have an opportunity to hear a Tchaikovsky opera, Rachmaninoff symphony and choral work and see Russian ballets as well as take in two art exhibitions of Russian paintings and book illustrations."

Now, we dare you: Go find a Russian city celebrating America for even one day, much less three months.

A few weeks ago, one of America's highest-circulating magazines, Time, chose Russia's "president" Vladimir Putin as "Person of the Year." In a lengthy feature, it gave publicity to a number of claims made by Putin as to the things he has allegedly accomplished to achieve progress in his country and called him a figure of historical significance.

Now, we dare you: Go find a Russian publication of comparable significance (or, any publication) that has accorded similar treatment to America's president, George Bush (or any American political leader).

The United States has accepted Russia as a member of the G-7 group of the world's most powerful Western nations, indeed transforming the group's name into the G-8, and even allowed Russia to host one of the group's summit conferences.

Now, we dare you: Name just one action of comparable significance that Russia has taken to benefit America in reciprocity.

You can't answer our challenge, can you?

No, of course you can't.

But what you can easily do, it almost goes without saying, is to find examples of Russians expressing haughty contempt for American culture and adopting policies diametrically opposed to American security interests. To name just a few:

• selling weapons to moral American foes Venezuela and Iran
• giving financial support to terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah
• obstructing U.S. military action in Iraq
• buzzing U.S. military bases with nuclear bombers
• destabilizing the Middle East to inflate the price of crude oil on which the Kremlin relies
• seeking to destabilize America-friendly regimes in Georgia and Ukraine and block the installation of defensive missile systems in Eastern Europe
• blocking international observers from verifying the legitimacy of Russian elections

Just as easily, you can find instances of bellicose anti-American rhetoric from Putin, calling America a threat to world security and democracy. And this attitude extends to all of Europe. A recent article on Radio Free Europe was entitled: "Russia Bares its Teeth, Signaling a Tough time for the OSCE."

We dare you: Find just one instance of George Bush aiming that kind of rhetoric at Russia. Indeed, we've repeatedly criticized him for failing to do so. Find just one instance of America giving military support to anyone Russia views the way America views the leaders of Venezuela and Iran.

And while Russia engages in this classic neo-Soviet stupidity and self-destruction on the foreign relations front, it continues to ignore the basic interests of the Russian people on the domestic front. They freeze in their homes from lack of heat, or the are burned alive in record numbers. The work for slave wages and lead miserably short, pathetic lives. The lead the world in statistics like murder rate and divorce, lag behind the world in statistics like preventing corruption and protecting human rights.

And the Kremlin couldn't care less. Just as in Soviet times, all it cares about is trying to childishly poke its ever more puny finger in mighty America's eye, even as America tries every way it knows how to be reasonable.

Meanwhile, America stands at the head of a broad coalition of like-minded world leaders, from Britain to Japan. Russia's "allies"? Rogue lunatics in places like Venezuela and Iran. Just as in Soviet times, Russia sticks its head in the sand like an ostrich, crushing the flow of information so that it can hide the truth from its people. More and more, one must ask whether even if they knew the truth the people of Russia would lift a finger to stop their government's march towards the precipice. After all, they didn't lift a finger to stop Stalin, now did they?

Just as in Soviet times, the Kremlin's behavior is becoming increasingly psychotic. Faced with the bad news that Georgia's president had triumphed over its pathetic attempt to unseat him (we report more details below), the Kremlin actually had the temerity to complain that Georgia did not give Georgians living in Russia enough help completing their absentee ballots. It seems not to have occurred to the Kremlin that just a short while ago it was carrying out pogroms against Georgians on Russian soil, seeking to round them up and deport them in record numbers. Only Russia is capable of this kind of hypocrisy, or of adopting such blatantly self-destructive polices, acts that would be comical if they did not bode such horror.

Indeed, Russians can't even seem to grasp the basic fact that even if they could destroy America, doing so would wreck havoc on the global economy, most especially on Russia, since America's oil demand is the only reason Russia remains solvent.

There can be only one outcome, the same one the resulted from the first Cold War. Russia replaced the USSR after that failure. What will replace Russia after this one?