[Destro]

I have a low opinion of Gorbachev and of Yeltsin - What does Gorbachev know of democracy? and as for Yeltsin: Yeltsin Speaks Out In Behalf Of Putin so some American reporter must have got the wrong translation? Dan Rather?

So Luis - why do you care about the opinions of a Soviet and a drunkard?

PS: The system under which Putin is moving Russia is as the French and English models. I will take republican order over democratic mob rule every time.

[CWOJackson]

"PS: The system under which Putin is moving Russia is as the French and English models."

LOL...not at all, just the Soviet model.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Apparently, Ronald Reagan cared about Gorbachev's opinion, and Gorbachev cared about Reagan's.

"PS: The system under which Putin is moving Russia is as the French and English models."

Yeah...right.

None so blind as they who will not see.

By the way...Bush spoke out against Putin's anti-democracy moves today.

I guess now you'll start calling Bush a drunk as well?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"The authorities must act in a tough and speedy manner" to meet "the bloody challenges thrown at us by the new enemy," Yeltsin said in a rare interview Thursday with the paper Moscow News. "But at the same time, I firmly believe that the measures that the country's leadership will undertake after Beslan will lie within the framework of the democratic freedoms that have become some of Russia's most valuable achievements over the last decade."

Yes, The Washington comPost got it wrong.

How could you describe taking away the people's rights to elect their own governors and representatives as something within "the framework of democratic freedoms that have become Russia's most valuable achievements over the last decade"?