Putin's Revenge

Our intrepid President is treking all over eastern Europe, former Soviet satellites, singing the song of democracy. That's wonderful, because the U.S. was nowhere in 1968, when Russian tanks rolled across Checkoslovakia, in 1980, when Lech Walesa was leading democratic revolutionaries in Warsaw, or in 1989, when students holding Statues of Liberty confronted Chinese government tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Of course, George W. has little bad to say about his "soul-mate" Valdimir Putin of Russia, even though the latter is doing everything he can to turn back the clock on democratic reform in that beleaguered nation. Even today's headlines on their joint press conference in Bratislava, Slovakia -- where Bush again referred to Putin as "my friend" -- reveal that Dubya has morphed the "criticize in private, praise in public" principle from corporate management, where it works well, to foreign relations, where it flatly contradicts his professed objectives. On the other hand, honest Russians (there's an oxymoron for you) admit that there's no American backing of Putin's autocratic putsch.

Nothing to Celebrate [MSNBC.com]. Perhaps true, but we don't do the image of the United States any favors by sharply criticizing Iran -- indeed, implying invasion plans -- while turning a blind eye to a leader who has basically abolished the legislature, continued a civil war and tried to disrupt free elections in another sovereign country. Yes, Moscow and Putin have suffered from terrorism, too. But that doesn't mean we should remain close allies.

 Posted by glenn