Putin's ramblings offer lessons on managing his successor and China

Reviewers and commentators eviscerated Tucker Carlson's two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin. Any journalistic pretenses Carlson may have had before the interview were shattered. In Leninist terms, he was a "useful idiot" and a straight man to the Kremlin's strong man. Putin's rambling 40-minute excursion on why Ukraine was part of Russia was dismissed by the West. His repeated rationale for invading to reunite Ukraine and Russia, protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians and destroy the stain of Nazism remained incredible. And he continued to blame the U.S. and NATO for causing the current crisis with Moscow. That said, strip away the boilerplate and…