Last week, the New York Post reported that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently said he showed Russian President Vladimir Putin a diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring, and then the Russian leader remarked that he could “kill someone” with such a ring – and never gave it back.
“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out,” the Post quoted Kraft, who was referring to the ring he wore after the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl in February 2005.
A friend of mine reminded me of a 70s joke that’s very reminiscent of this incident, which is why he and I believe it’s true: Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin come back from a visit to Poland, and Kosygin says, “Did you see the luxurious watches those Polish dignitaries were wearing?” and Brezhnev says, “No, let me see…”
“You know, I remember neither Mr Kraft nor a ring,” Putin told reporters when he was asked about the incident during an economic forum in St Petersburg on Friday – in the very city where he lifted the ring.
“I remember some souvenirs were handed out. But if it is so precious to Kraft and the team, I have a proposal,” Putin said, proposing that he would ask a Russian jeweler to make “something really good, noticeable – so that it is clear that it is an expensive thing, with good metal and a stone,” and give it to the materialistic American so he stops annoying the good people of Russia…
Kraft has told the NY Post that he was going to start a whole campaign to get his ring back from the thieving president back in 2005, but the Bush White House wouldn’t let him.
It’s good to be the Czar…