Vladimir Putin, CBS News Loyalist
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1032354,00.html
George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush’s four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin’s crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. “Putin thought we’d fired Dan Rather,” says a senior Administration official. “It was like something out of 1984.”*ahem*
While certainly not the same thing (Putin’s cracking down on democracy and freedom in general to keep his job, Bush’s supporters are the ones who attacked this bad journalism), it’s an interesting thing to have tossed about. And if Putin is asking this, what is the rest of the world thinking?
