Foreign leader endorses Bush, threatens American voters

Putin joins Cheney in the vote-for-Bush-or-die chorus



Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that if Bush loses the US election, the "spread of terrorism" around the world will follow.

According to Dick Cheney, the American people ought to know why this Russian hardliner has such enthusiasm for Bush. After all, back in March when John Kerry spoke of foreign support, Cheney said

At the very least, we have a right to know what he is saying to foreign leaders that makes them so supportive of his candidacy. American voters are the ones charged with determining the outcome of this election - not unnamed foreign leaders.

But in this present case, we actually know exactly what the foreign leader named Putin is up to. Russia is headed back to the days of the gulags in a headlong thrust facilitated by internal terror, most recently the Beslan school incident. Worse, there is a whole element of threat to energy security with the Yukos clampdown and other developments in the worlds's largest oil producer. Here is how a concerned group from the infamous Project for a New American Century put it in a statement released three weeks ago:

We are also worried about the deteriorating conduct of Russia in its foreign relations. President Putin's foreign policy is increasingly marked by a threatening attitude towards Russia's neighbors and Europe's energy security, the return of rhetoric of militarism and empire, and by a refusal to comply with Russia's international treaty obligations. In all aspects of Russian political life, the instruments of state power appear to be being rebuilt and the dominance of the security services to grow. We believe that this conduct cannot be accepted as the foundation of a true partnership between Russia and the democracies of NATO and the European Union.

What do Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin each see in the other's soul that mates them so closely in the Terror War?