KIEV, Ukraine-When Good Democracies Go Bad!

Remember the Orange Revolution? That pesky little band of freedom fighters with the orange scarves a few years back? Well, seems the old saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” still rings true, especially in fragile democracies like the Ukraine.

Yulia Tymoshenko who is the prime minister but looks more like the St. Pauli Girl is at odds with Viktor Yushchenko who is the President. Mr. Yushchenko if you remember is the gentleman who was poisoned enough to scare him severely, just not kill him.

Problem seems to be that these two have been at each other’s throats since day one, but it has gotten so bad as of late because like most countries, the Ukraine has run out of money and needs a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Now, the IMF wants nothing more than these two to play nice but Mr. Yushchenko is trying to get rid of Ms. Tymoshenko by forcing early elections in December.

What’s this all mean, not much really except Russia is lying in the tall grass waiting for this little pissing match to escalate. Having the government collapse in the Ukraine is exactly what Moscow would need to invade and pull the former Soviet Union’s breadbasket back in control of Mother Russia. And since Putin is playing monopoly with the former satellite states anyway, he might as well try and add this feather to his cap. This could very well be the international crisis that Joe Biden predicted a week before Election Day. In any event, watch out Kiev, keep it up and you could be humming the theme to the Russian national anthem in no time!