[Old Sarge]

Bush Looked Into Putin's Eyes, What Did He Fail To See?

Oh, I dunno, how about... REALITY?

[MNJohnnie]

Seems the Whineocons forget that statement was made in 2001 when we needed Russian aid to get into Afghanistan after 09-11-01.

[lonestar67]

I agree with the general thrust of criticisms made against President Bush regarding this comment from early in his Presidential first term.

Nonetheless, it is useful to provide some context for the statement. The statement was made after 911 with a visit to the Crawford ranch. Bush was using one of his strong diplomatic suits of ingratiation to basically back out of major agreements made under the Clinton administration. Most importantly, Bush backed out of missile defense treaties that guaranteed Russia that we would not develop such systems.

Bush’s gregarious ingratiation style was a way of compelling the media to accept his hardline against Putin as legitimate. This was functionally useful to allowing the US to break liberal bilateral agreements with Russia while appearing legitimate.

I do not think Bush fails to appreciate the aggression and absurdity of Russian policies since that time.

McCain’s statement about Putin is more accurate— we should see the KGB in Putin.

[damondonion]

Sounds like he failed to see that Putin wasn’t a total chump. Also sounds like somebody finally rubbed Russia’s nose in it one or two too many times and got some sort of a reaction. Shame the tanks didn’t roll into Kosovo instead...

[onedoug]

Maybe Putin didn’t look into Bush’s eyes.