NYT, pg1: From Those Putin Would Weaken, Praise ("absolute prostration")

[DeepModem Mom]

From Those Putin Would Weaken, Praise
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: September 15, 2004


MOSCOW, Sept. 14 - On Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin announced he would strip Russia's 89 regions of much of their authority and electoral legitimacy. On Tuesday, not one of the leaders of those regions said a public word of protest.

On the contrary, there were words of praise.

"It is constructive and productive," Murat M. Zyazikov, the president of Ingushetia, said in a telephone interview, embracing a proposal that would leave him serving at the will not of his impoverished electorate in southern Russia, but of the president in faraway Moscow.

If there were any lingering doubts about Mr. Putin's grip on power, the reaction to his sweeping proposal to overhaul Russia's political system - replacing, for instance, the election of governors, presidents and other regional leaders with presidential appointments - swept them away.

A headline in the newspaper Izvestia called it the "September Revolution," equating Mr. Putin's consolidation of power to this country's most famous October, almost 87 years ago. And yet the second day of the revolution passed with barely a murmur of protest, even among those affected most....

***

"We are coming to the point where we have no checks and balances, no democratic and peaceful way to balance power," Leonid N. Dobrokhotov, an adviser to the Communist Party, said in a telephone interview. "The only thing left is absolute prostration."


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/international/europe/15russia.html?hp

[JSJ]

1. putin is a bush crony nt

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Yeah, we see now what W saw when he looked into Putin's soul...

and liked.