Misunderstanding Russia and Russians - Observations from a former diplomat

[Igel]

1. Once you get past the halo effect,

she's commenting on her observations from 2 weeks of traveling. The "halo effect" is, in effect, "she was right on the Iraq war, she must be right on other matters." It's one of the weaker forms of appeal to authority, because the authority is by association--in effect, she's no more good at understanding Russians because of her Iraq War stance than she is because she stayed a a Holiday Inn, but we trust her.

I assume her Russian is fluent. And that she values Russians beliefs and what they're told above anything said in the West, because, well, you can't trust Western media. But you can trust the English-language Russian media.