OPINION:
This is for you tired, poor, huddled masses ready to throw yourselves out a window if you hear one more mention of Jerry Nadler, Bob Mueller, obstruction of justice and — oh God, no! — Vladimir Putin stealing our elections.
Here’s a Russian tale that won’t have a single “Mueller” or “report” or “collusion” in it.
Russia is about to claim bragging rights for Europe’s tallest residential building.
OK. Take time to let your heart start beating again.
This really high high-rise will rise to a majestic 101 stories, soaring 1,328 feet — give or take a few inches for your standard vodka variance. The new building will be completed by 2024 — along with approval of the 34th Amendment permitting President Trump a third term.
The new Russian skyscraper will go up in the same area of the city that was to be the site of Moscow’s Trump Tower.
Lest we forget, the World Trade Center’s Tower 1 rose even higher, to 1,368 feet. It was the tallest building in the world when completed.
It stood that high, that is, until a bunch of Saudi Arabians set out to follow what they had been told was Allah’s orders to convert or kill the infidels (kill is quicker) in the land where the women drove cars.
Infidels are a serious disease for some in the kingdom.
“Seize them and kill them wherever you find them…” was the line from the hijackers’ holy book that they may have memorized.
Which is not to say Islam grabbed up the exclusive franchise on bloodthirsty religious commands.
There’s that vexatious injunction from Deuteronomy 7:1-3:
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land … and drives out before you…seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.”
But enough about Riyadh, the Quran and the Bible. Back to Moscow, which is where the Kremlin is.
The Kremlin, by the way, is a fortified complex (not to be confused with a vitamin) that houses the palace that in turn houses Mr. Putin. See how it’s all fitting together?
The Kremlin palace always has housed Russian presidents and will house the next one — should there ever be a next one.
Which, as far as Mr. Putin is concerned, would only be possible over his dead body.
OK, full disclosure. I happen to know that a totally different structure actually will be the tallest in Russia. A commercial building now under construction will reach 1,516 feet over St. Petersburg.
Why in St. Petersburg and not Moscow? Why not?
Washington is our capital city and it doesn’t have the tallest building in the U.S. But then, the District of Columbia has a 1910 law forbidding buildings taller than 13 stories (110 feet).
And, no, the height thing has nothing to do with being able to see the Capitol dome.
The law excludes from the height limit all of Pennsylvania Avenue, on which luxuriates The Donald’s hotel, the bell tower of which soars to a dizzying (if you’re an ant) 315 feet.
And I know what you rich, never-huddled, too-rich-to-be-tired masses of elitist Democrats are thinking.
The answer is no: Donald J. Trump had nothing to do with the Pennsylvania Avenue exception.
He wasn’t even born then. Which is not to say he couldn’t have been if he had wanted to.
In any case, Moscow has no such height restriction keeping it from soaring over St. Petersburg.
So the answer to the tallest building competition must be that money talks, and the real estate men in St. Petersburg talk louder because they have many more rubles — several stories’ worth — than Moscow’s moneymen.
True?
Let’s go with plausible.
Back to the World Trade Center. Those Saudi fun-lovers flew an airliner into the Towers 1 and another one into Tower 2, right under the noses, so to speak, of the Saudis’ vaunted intelligence apparatus.
What’s that have to do with the super-skyscrapers going up in the Russian Federation?
Nothing, we hope. But any reason to talk about something Russian without the collusion delusion and obstruction distraction is reason enough.
All the more so in my book, if it can lightly remind us huddled masses about who did what to whom on Sept. 11, 2001.
You’ve got to see the humor in U.S. president after president bowing to the royal family in Riyadh. The Saudis, our staunchest Mideast ally, who nonetheless gave us Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers. It’s the country that has to hire Pakistani pilots to fly the advanced military jets we sell them, and which have yet to settle a regional dispute.
It’s the same Riyadh that, 18 years after the destruction of the Twin Towers, gave us the butchering of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, on the order a new and “progressive” Saudi crown prince.
All of which makes Mr. Putin, the former KGB chief, look like a comparatively civilized overseer of state-commissioned murders abroad.
What’s all this dark stuff doing in a light column that’s supposed to provide relief from the RUSSIA!-Putin-Trump-obstruction monotony?
Let me get back to you on that.
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