The propaganda arm of Washington, DC known as Radio Free Europe is running a hatchet job on Stephen Cohen, one of America's preeminent Russia scholars, for standing up to U.S. establishment propaganda about Russia from the pens of dimwits who couldn't tell Kuznetsov from Chernyshevsky from Lermontov and who certainly aren't fit to polish Cohen's boots much less anything else.

The central theme of 'Radio CIA' is that Cohen's stance for sanity and truth has made him a 'former scholar':

"Widely seen as one of the preeminent scholars in the generation of Sovietologists who rose to prominence in the 1970s, Cohen these days is routinely derided as Putin’s 'toady' and 'useful idiot.'"

Of course it turns out Radio CIA's claim that Cohen is now 'routinely derided' turns out to be based on another hatchet job from the pen of Julia Ioffe, for whom hurling crap at Russia is a profession, and another piece in the New York Times, which is as much a regime outlet as the Radio Free Europe itself, albeit corporate rather than government funded. Moreover the op-ed in question is from a Polish guy we've never heard of.

In its futher attempts Radio CIA rolls out one Lynn Lubamersky, who is so notable in the scholarly community that she is making her bread as an associate professor of history at Boise State University. (Cohen is a tenured professor at Princeton.) The citation from Lubamersky is featured prominently:

"Stephen Cohen has been a mouthpiece for a mass murderer."

Holy cow! How are we to interpret this? Has Cohen taken up speaking on the behalf of Obama, Bush or Clinton? We didn't think so, but if a gal from Boise State says so there must be something to it!

For all Americans out there -- it must be great knowing your tax money is going to two-bit propagandists tasked with attacking one of the best, and certainly among the most courageous, scholars present-day America has to offer.