New York TimesMOSCOW, Oct. 14 — At the gathering of leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations in Germany this year, President Bush turned to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and remarked that the two of them had outlasted most of their old colleagues from the group’s annual meetings, American officials recalled. Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi, Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair had left or were leaving.
“Next year,” Mr. Putin replied, “it will be only you.”
Mr. Putin’s response, for a time, persuaded the Bush administration that he would keep his word and step down as Russia’s president when his term ends next year, several months before Mr. Bush’s own presidency ends in January 2009.
Now, though, Mr. Putin’s plans are far from clear, and as a result, the administration’s hopes that Russia would move toward a freer, more democratic society have substantially diminished.
Mr. Putin’s surprise suggestion last month that he might yet remain in power — possibly as a newly empowered prime minister, possibly as the eminence atop the “party of power” — has left the White House stumped. The administration is uncertain how to deal with a man who has consolidated power almost exclusively in his own hands, even as Mr. Bush continues to call Mr. Putin “my friend.”
First of all, let's set the record straight. The White House is not stumped because Mr. Putin consolidated his power. It's that Mr. Putin consolidated his power in a way that Bush could not. They are jealous.
Oh, and this is priceless:
Such comments reflect another reality: the powerlessness of the United States when it comes to prodding Russia in a more democratic direction, barely six years after Mr. Putin’s willingness to reach out to Mr. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, seemed to herald a new era of cooperation.See, telling someone what to do, while doing the opposite yourself, is a recipe for failure.
The parody is too much.
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