What a Guy!

Meet the Stalinist, Putin-Loving American Expat Taking Over Russia's Radio Waves

This Tim Kirby, a 31 year-old from the Ohio suburbs, is quite the guy. With his own show on RT (a network paid for by the Russian Government), Kirby blasts America while making sure to remind Russians that Vladimir Putin is their guy:

As the Kremlin rallied support for its ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans imposed late last year, Mr. Kirby, who is 31, appeared on prime-time talk shows to say that one quarter of American children take pills that affect their brains, and that they are endangered by religious sects whose members oppose medical care or dance around poisonous snakes. "Every 6 or 10 years a snake bites a child, the child dies and that's the news of the day and the process repeats itself," he told a national television audience in February.

When demonstrations erupted around the country over Vladimir Putin's plan to return to the Kremlin in late 2011, Mr. Kirby took to the airwaves to say that Mr. Putin was just taking a page from Washington's playbook. "In America there is a tendency for whoever is sitting in power to be the winner," he said. "In Russia it's the same: Putin is there, we understand it's best not to risk anything. ...

Radio Mayak says it doesn't know precisely how many listeners tuned into Mr. Kirby's shows, but they say he's a hit. Russia's Ministry of Communications rated it the best political talk show in Russia in 2012, but the format was abruptly changed last summer after Mr. Kirby got an on-air tongue-lashing from a Kremlin critic for suggesting fascism needn't be outlawed. Now he appears on Thursdays, as a regular guest of another talk show host. The station said the move was a promotion, so more listeners could hear him as they drive to work.

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Justin Green

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