Putin’s Soul
Finally, something printed in left-wing Newsweek that I agree with: Bush has a flawed view of the Russian leader.
Maltsev has met with Condoleezza Rice, whom he believes brings a more realistic assessment than Bush to what Putin is all about. “She speaks Russian as well as myself, maybe better,” he says. Rice studied Russia during the height of the cold war, and she is likely to push U.S. policy into a more wary posture toward Putin. “We may have a new member of the Axis of Evil,” says Marshall Wittmann, a scholar at the centrist Democratic Leadership Conference. At the very least, the next time Bush looks into Putin’s eyes, he’ll have Rice at his elbow telling him that the window into Putin’s soul can best be found at KGB headquarters.
