Rachel Maddow - Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth

The very idea of it was too implausible, too fantastical, to be believed; it was simply too outlandishly grand even for a grand opening. A visiting head of state, one of the most powerful men on the planet in the autumn of 2003, had announced his intention to be on hand to christen a tiny new franchise operation on the frowsy little corner of West 24th Street and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan.

The world potentate was in the middle of a three-day swing through New York City, on his way to a one-on-one summit with George W. Bush at the American presidential retreat, Camp David. He had spent the past few days in the august citadels of power, money, and meaning in New York; had taken private meetings with the president of France and the chancellor of Germany in his private suites at the Waldorf Astoria hotel; had delivered a widely anticipated address to the General Assembly of the United Nations; had fielded earnest questions about the benefits and the perils of democracy from scholars at the citys premier university; had bowed his head in prayer alongside religious leaders whose brethren had long ago been exiled from their shared home country; and had laid a bouquet of red carnations at a temporary memorial to the 343 New York City firefighters killed just two years earlier in the 9/11 attacks. The New York Daily News reporters thought they had detected an actual tear slide down the presidential cheek as he placed the floral remembrance for the dead American heroes. Now the world leader was going to veer off this power slalom to preside over the grand opening of a business with a few hundred square feet of retail space, valued in its recent purchase at $55,000?

As the hour of the scheduled grand opening in the increasingly gay New York neighborhood of Chelsea neared, he was meeting with two dozen captains of American industry in the cavernous banquet room of what might well be considered the Royal Palace of International Capitalismthe New York Stock Exchange. Heads of the largest companies in America were on hand; the CEO of the most profitable company in the history of the modern world, ExxonMobil, had flown in from Texas to be among the interlocutors. All of which appeared to please the guest of honor. We have been surrounded by a very kind and warm atmosphere almost everywhere we have been in New York, was his opening message, as translated to the industrial barons through the elegant headset provided to each. It is this direct contact that allows all of usboth politicians and entrepreneursto open new possibilities and spheres for wide cooperation.

Three miles north, meanwhile, at 24th Street and Tenth Avenue, as the security team began to shut down surrounding streets, shoo away the occasional Rollerblader, and tape off a makeshift pen for the growing press contingent, the stores attendants readjusted their new red shirts and ball caps. Among the curious onlookers at this unfolding scene, skepticism reigned. Nobody thinks he will come, the store manager confided to one reporter. We are telling people. They say, No way.

But then, at around two oclock in the afternoon, there was a wail of sirens from the south, and a boxy Eastern Europeanstyle armored limousine tucked in among a phalanx of armored vehicles came into view. The small crowd of people who craned their necks and stared south toward the motorcade also noted the sudden appearance of the senior U.S. senator from the great state of New York, there to greet the arriving limousine. This was really gonna happen. The attendants and managers readjusted their shirts and ball caps one final time. The counterman checked again to make sure that the coffee was hot and the doughnuts were arrayed in comely fashion. By the time the honored ribbon cutter emerged from behind the steel curtain of armed and armored security and walked toward the gas pumps and cash registers, local reporters were already rehearsing their ledes. In possibly the greatest show of political power ever to attend the grand opening of a gas station, the New York Post would offer, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up in Chelsea yesterday with Sen. Chuck Schumer to help inaugurate the first Russian-owned chain of petroleum stops in America.

The Posts rival tabloid, the New York Daily News, countered with Fill er up, Vlad, under the headline No Fueling, Thats Putin.

There was a hint of pride in Vladimir Putins open, shoulder-swinging gait as he strode across the gas station lot to shake hands with the five nervous-looking attendants, who could now be officially counted among the ranks of Moscow-based OAO Lukoils 120,000 employees. Their uniforms, President Putin must have noted, were snappy and vibrant and matched the rest of the station decorpower red! The day was overcast and the sky wan, but the nearby credit-card-ready gas pumps gleamed under lights recessed in the new high canopy built to shield customers from the vagaries of weather and to dispense retardant chemical foam in the event of a gasoline fire.

The franchisee of this station, Paramgit Kumar, was in his glory too, and all thanks to Lukoil, the largest and most profitable oil company in Russia, a country second only to Saudi Arabia in daily production of crude. Lukoil claimed more proven reserves of oil than any publicly traded company on earth and had taken up its position at the point of the flying wedge of Russias entry onto the new world orders wide-open field of commerce. The corporation had emerged from the dank, state-run ruins of the Soviet Oil Ministry into the bright lights of free-market capitalism, a fact recently confirmed by the companys official listing on the London Stock Exchange. Another first for Russia! Share prices of Lukoil had risen from $3.54 to $24.55 in just four years. Revenues had jumped from $15.5 billion to more than $22 billion in the previous year alone. Western bankers had enthusiastically stuck their heads into the scrum for the chance to win enormous fees for trail-bossing Lukoils $775 million public stock offering.