I fully support President Medvedev’s outreach to American dissidents

According to the Associated Press, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wants to get outside of the DC beltway in his next trip to the USA:  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he would like to meet with "dissidents" when he visits the U.S. next week. Russian news agencies quote him as telling a group of visiting foreign ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

According to the Associated Press, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wants to get outside of the DC beltway in his next trip to the USA: 

According to the Associated Press, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wants to get outside of the DC beltway in his next trip to the USA: 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he would like to meet with "dissidents" when he visits the U.S. next week.

Russian news agencies quote him as telling a group of visiting foreign experts that "I believe there are dissidents in the United States."

ITAR-Tass quotes him as saying: "Let them tell me what problems the United States has. That won’t be bad, considering the Soviet experience."

I think that this is a fantastic idea, when one considers the potential pool of dissidents.  Fortunately, Andy Heil has come up with a list of possibile dissidents at RFERL’s Transmissions blog.  His list:

  1. Noam Chomsky
  2. Rush Limbaugh
  3. Michael Moore
  4. Kanye West
  5. Sarah Palin
  6. Jeremiah Wright
  7. Gus Hall
  8. Sean Penn
  9. Chirstopher Hitchens
  10. Eric Cartman

This is an excellent start, but I think we can add a few names to the old dissident list.  Let me think…. who else is railing against the System these days?

  1. Glenn Beck
  2. U.S. Representative Ron Paul
  3. Glenn Greenwald
  4. Dick Cheney
  5. Serena Williams
  6. U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich
  7. Jimmy Carter
  8. U.S. Representative Joe Wilson
  9. Terrell Owens
  10. Beyonce (OK, technically, she’s not railing against the system — but as much of a jackass as he might have been, Kanye was right:  this is the most awesome video ever.  She was robbed, and I blame The Man). 

I’m just trying to imagine Medvedev meeting this crew. 

Commenters are encouraged to suggest additional names in the comments.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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