Pity poor Edward Lozansky.

There he was on Monday morning about to open his sick, sordid little confabulation of Russophiles, seeking to dupe unwary Americans into dropping their guard and allowing Vladimir Putin to further consolidate his malignant rule over Russia. He'd lined up financial support for his dastardly enterprise from the Kremlin's propaganda TV network, Russia Today, and he was even given an op-ed column in the Moscow Times to publicize it. All the bedraggled Russophile garbage across the land was converging on Washington DC for his "World Russia Forum" including even the vile Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog.

And what happens? He opens up his morning edition of the Washington Post and what does he find? An op-ed column by none other than leading Russian dissident Oleg Kozlovsky (shown above in the loving embrace of Vladimir Putin's neo-Soviet goons), a column accusing his benefactor of turning Russia into a giant neo-Soviet gulag! We republish the column below, together with a second op-ed from the post on Russia in as many days, this one from Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Center decrying Russia's lack of a free press.

And it wasn't just any op-ed. It ran in the upper left corner of the hard copy of the paper and included the above photograph of Kozlovsky -- not one but two distinct honors for the column, showing the Post's influential editors stood behind Kozlovsky 1,000 percent.

Ouch. Miracle if Lozansky wasn't rushed to the emergency room with a nasty case of acid reflux. Lozansky is well known to regular readers of this blog; we've exposed him repeatedly in prior posts as the fundamental fraud he is. Reading Kozlovsky's terrifying words, its impossible to see Lozansky as anything other than a modern Neville Chamberlain.

Lozansky claims that presidential candidate John McCain is "alone" in his stark opposition to Russia, but in fact it's neo-Soviet collaborators like Lozansky that stand alone, surrounded by their truly ridiculous, detached-from-reality, neo-Soviet lies. In a classic bit of Soviet dishonesty, he claims that the U.S. needs Russian uranium to run its nuclear reactors; in fact, Russia itself just inked a deal to import uranium from Australia, without which it couldn't run its own reactors. Moreover, the idea that the U.S. should ignore Russia's barbaric desecration of the institution of democracy just so that it can get hold of Russian energy resources defiles the very foundations of American civilization. This man is truly beneath pond scum.

Lozansky claims that Russia needn't worry about McCain's threat to oust Russia from the G-8, because the other members wouldn't go along. Apparently, he thinks McCain is crazy and off the reservation. But if that is so, why is Lozansky so worried? The fact is that McCain can, with the stroke of his pen, make the G-8 choose between the U.S. and Russia as members. If he does that, the nations of Europe won't have to think twice before siding with their NATO ally.

The only person Lozansky actually names as disagreeing with McCain is the senile lunatic professor Steven Cohen, whom this blog has, like Lozansky himself, repeatedly discredited for the ridiculous gibberish he spews from the radical Nation magazine published by his own wife. The fact that Lozansky is insane enough to believe that Professor Cohen's opposition means that one of the most powerful figures in America's foreign policy establishment stands alone is proof positive, all by itself, of what a ridiculous fraud Lozansky really is.

And then, in classic bit of Russian insanity, he completely contradicts himself. He states:

To be fair to McCain, the other two presidential front-runners, Democratic Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have not offered a positive-thinking agenda for Russia either, pledging to be tougher with Russia than Bush and endorsing further NATO expansion by accepting Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. All three presidential contenders have promised to expand the Bush administration's effort to "spread democracy," a policy that an overwhelming majority of Russians see as a thinly veiled smoke screen to strengthen the U.S. position in the world at the expense of Russia.

Hmm. So then, it seems that McCain isn't really so alone after all, now is he? No wonder Lozansky is getting desperate.

In his MT op-ed, Lozansky complains that he'd invited McCain to attend the Forum and debate his hard line on Russia and was apparently surprised to find that McCain was ignoring him. Of course, Lozansky doesn't say a single word about his failure to extend any Forum invitations to any Russian opposition figures -- such as Garry Kasparov or Kozlovsky himself. Though Mr. Lozansky's forum made a place for pro-Russian propaganda from Russia Today and many other sources, no such place was laid for the United States -- nor did his column say a single word about any changes any Russian leader needs to make to accommodate the U.S.

We can't help but wonder how Americans would have reacted in 1938 to a forum sponsored by a state-owned Nazi TV network and calling for "economic, political and military alliance" with Hitler's Germany. Since the sponsor of Lozansky's conference is Russia Today, Putin's propaganda network (recently condemned by the New York Times), one would hope Americans will be just as suspicious of his effort, kicked off by the Russian ambassador. Does Mr. Lozansky, a card-carrying Kremlin shill, really believe Americans might be foolish enough to believe he's concerned about their national security interests as well as those of Russia?

Simply put, Americans can't trust Kremlin mouthpieces like Mr. Lozansky to look out for their best interests, and won't do so no matter how much Kremlin money greases the skids. Fool me once, Mr. Lozansky, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!