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Let's see, Putin has a 77% favorable rating with Russians, which compares with Ronald Reagan's best. Elections by outside observors have been validated as fair.

"Yeltsin believed in private enterprise?" Oh! If you call letting the oligarchs steal all of the state resources for kopecks on the Ruble, then that is correct. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a communist leader, is a prime example. He set up a dummy company, which bid $2 billion for Yukos, the intimidated the opposition bidders, and one was murdered. He put in his personal bid of $200k for Yukos. After bidding was complete he disolved the dummy company, which left his $200k as the winning bid. Oh, he never paid the $200k.

Yeltsin allowed the oligarchs to rule and reign in a way which would make the robber barons and mafia look like choir boys. Look up the Russian oligarchs and see how they stole their billions instead of listening to Russophobes like Anders Aslund.

Putin, Reagan and FDR

The Russia of today has a freedom unimaginable in Soviet times and stability unimaginable in the Yeltsin era. By Edward Lozansky. (President American University in Moscow)

If Westerners worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin would escalate the stinging war of words with the Bush administration, notably the combative Vice President Dick Cheney, they can rest easy. Mr. Putin's positive and quite constructive approach to the United States, most notably in his annual State of the Nation speech this week, should lessen any fears that Cold War breezes are returning.

Indeed, Mr. Putin stressed in his speech that Cold War mistakes shouldn't be repeated and many times he described his plans for “contemporary Russia” and the “modernization of Russia.” He focused on three local issues — energy, education and health service — that will be worldwide priorities at the July Group of Eight (G8) summit, which he will host.

In many respects, the Russian president's address sounded like practically any contemporary State of the Union Address by an American president. He talked of the need for strong economic progress, of economic freedom, of equal conditions for competition, of a responsible economic policy and of financial stability to encourage entrepreneurs. He sounded surprisingly like Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Putin acknowledged that much of the technological equipment used by Russian industry lags “not just years but decades behind the most advanced technology the world can offer.” Russia, he said, “must take serious measures to encourage investment in production infrastructure and innovative development while at the same time maintaining the financial stability we have achieved.”

Unquestionably,we should always be skeptical of past adversaries. That's human nature. But this is not the rhetoric of a saber-rattler, a Cold War-era leader bent on stirring up another battle with the West to raise his stature at home and on the world stage. Unlike Russian leaders before him, Mr. Putin didn't take the bait that the vice president tossed out last week when Mr. Cheney accused Moscow of backsliding on democracy. Mr. Putin did not ignite another firestorm of invective.

Indeed, in his speech, the Russian leader was as mindful of the threats of terrorism from elsewhere as any major leader. He contended that the rest of the world isn't considering seriously enough terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And he identified plans for Russia to deter potential terrorist attacks.

While the West again may want to paint Russia as bad, it is as plain as the clearest Russian vodka to me that Russia is making real progress in its long journey away from Soviet times. Am I naive, or even blind? Assuredly not. I know firsthand of this transformation. In 1975, I got in big trouble with Soviet authorities for publicly criticizing their foreign and domestic policies and I now spend a lot of time in Moscow running the American University in Moscow, the first private school in Russia, founded in 1990.

Does Russia have more to do in terms of democracy building? Of course. But far from falling into old habits, the Russia of today has a freedom unimaginable in Soviet times and stability unimaginable in the Yeltsin era.

To truly grasp the changes underway in today's Russia, you need only have heard a brief passage in Mr. Putin's State of the Nation address, in which he talked of the challenges he has faced: “Working on this great national program that aims at providing basic comforts for the broad masses, we have indeed trodden on some corns, and we will continue to do so. But these are the corns of those who attempt to gain position or wealth, or even both, by taking shortcuts — at the expense of the common good.”

Those were fine words — but they weren't Mr. Putin's. He was quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt, who spoke them as president in 1934. Now if that isn't a symbol and signal of change in Russia, Vice President Cheney, I don't know what is!

I think Putin would fare far better if he would quote Teddy Roosevelt instead of FDR!

Funny...this is serendipity for me. Yesterday I was thinking about both Roosevelts quite alot because I was eyeing a very sharp-looking bronze figure of an elk. I found it stunning.

Someone told me that it was called a Roosevelt Elk (that mostly all American elk are considered Roosevelt elks, in fact). I said that from now on I will call all elks TEDDY Roosevelt elks only. No FDR for my elks :)

"Let's see, Putin has a 77% favorable rating with Russians, which compares with Ronald Reagan's best."

How dare you place that KGB pig in the same line as America's greatest president (Ronald Reagan) of the 20th century.

The anti-Western, terrorist exporting Axis of Evil régimes are the identical collection of thugs Czar Putin is arming to the teeth today.

Russian weapons, sold by Putin, to those Axis of Evil dictatorships & their cohorts, are murdering American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what do you care as long as your boy Putin has the best public relations you can provide.

Your own anti-American propaganda speaks loud and clear.

"If Westerners worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin would escalate the stinging war of words with the Bush administration, notably the combative Vice President Dick Cheney, they can rest easy. .."

"..I now spend a lot of time in Moscow running the American University in Moscow,..."

(I bet you do at that, "comrade".)

No link, what's the date on that writing you posted?

How dare you compare Reagan with the murderer Putin.

And that includes the children his Special Forces thugs killed in Moscow and Beslan.