Western politicians say un-PC things when they don’t realise the microphones are on. The Russians make sure the mikes are on. Putin, whom Mrs Clinton named ‘alpha dog’ with grudging admiration, leads the way. Chechens will be ‘whacked in the shithouse’, a foreign journalist politely enquiring about the whacking will be circumcised so radically that ‘nothing will grow again’, Saakashvili will be hanged by the portion of his anatomy that probably can’t support his weight.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Vice Chairman of the Duma, delivered a drunken rant about Condoleeza Rice a few years ago, taking exception to her putative bellicosity. As a curative for this, the leader of the Russian LibDems suggested ‘that black bitch’ (John Terry, call your office) visit ‘our Spetsnaz barracks’ where she would be ‘f…ed’ until ‘soldierly sperm came out of her ears.’ (Russophones can still find the complete text on YouTube.)
And Dmitriy Medvedev, seen as more of the alpha dog’s poodle than a rottweiler like Zhirinovsky, sought to toughen up his image by reacting to the Arab Spring thus: ‘Enough f..king around, Mubarak! F..k’em up with tanks! Don’t be a Mub-arse!… And anyone who supports this revolution here, if only in word, must be nicked straight away, taken to the Lubianka cellars and f..ked up the a..e with a steel pipe. And his b…s must be cut off, so that he won’t multiply, because an a…hole like that will never teach his children anything good.’
Fairly robust idiom, that, and within earshot of a dozen journalists. A doctorate in law must mean something different in Russia.