When this news first hit the wires, everyone thought it was a joke. But no. Only yesterday he got an "Oscar" for lying, and now here comes another award: *Vladimir Putin signed a decree "On Certain Measures to Improve the Efficiency of State Mass Media." For the purpose of improving the efficiency of state mass media, I hereby order: To liquidate: (a) the federal state budgetary institution "State Television and Radio Programs Fund" (Moscow), with the property assigned to it under operational management to be subsequently transferred to the economic control of the federal state unitary enterprise "All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company"; (b) the federal state budgetary scientific institution "Russian Book Chamber" (Moscow), with the property assigned to it under operational management to be subsequently transferred to the economic control of the federal state unitary enterprise "Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS)" (Moscow). To reorganize the federal state budgetary institution "Editorial Office of Rossiyskaya Gazeta" (the Russian government newspaper) (Moscow) by merging into it the federal state budgetary institution "Editorial Office of Rodina magazine" (Moscow). To create the federal state unitary enterprise "International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today)"*.
http://kremlin.ru/news/19805 A huge state propaganda agency has been created, with a budget in the billions. And at its head, absurd as it sounds, is Dmitry Kiselyov.
I think this is very good. State propaganda ought to have a face of its own, and Kiselyov is a perfect fit—there's nowhere left to stamp him, so thoroughly marked is he. He even looks like his master—Toad_on_the_Pipe. It would have been much worse if Putin had appointed someone "conditionally respectable." Then the words "you lie endlessly" would have to be wrapped in ritual garbage about their "past achievements." But here everything is clear. Update. My personal favorite selection from today's hero's body of work:
