Managing the Vote

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It's right, Putin set up power for long time, till his end. He will be dictator like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler. They are her cult figures, idols. He want be idol also. Most dangeros that these idols murdered billions of innocent people (not only in their contry). Reason may be not only war but alcoholism, medicine, hunger, pollution. Russia has first place in military spent, and last place (as Zimbabve) in the life interval of people, already.

It's right, Putin set up power for long time, till his end. He will be dictator like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler. They are her cult figures, idols. He want be idol also. Most dangeros that these idols murdered billions of innocent people (not only in their contry). Reason may be not only war but alcoholism, medicine, hunger, pollution. Russia has first place in military spent, and last place (as Zimbabve) in the life interval of people, already.

Wow, we have some retards here don't we. We have a mad to be dictator in Russia, fixing elections and killing off his opposition and here we have people claiming Bush is worse and that conservatives want to start another cold war. People grow up. This is just another example of blind hatred torwards Bush overshawdowing your ability to think using logic. First off do some reaserch about Bush and his buddies. (BTW, going on CNN and reading a biased story and believing it before you think about it isn't reaserch. Huge surprise for the most of you.) You'll find that most things you acuse Bush of doing is false. Thats if you have any brian cells left (I doubt that considering the things you say now).
Second, the majority supported the Communists and look what happended to the USSR. Just because alot of people support him doesn't mean he is good.
Further more shut up non-Americans. Hypocrytes.

Russia???s government is emerging as a sinister fraternity of gangsters, but how can we criticize Russia about rigged elections when we have a record of rigged elections ourselves? Consider the election of 2000, which Gore actually won, but was rigged by Florida, governed by Bush???s brother Jeb. According to Gregory Pallast in Armed Madhouse, 5 to 6 million people were wrongfully deprived of their right to vote in 2004, - or their votes weren???t counted. Most of these voters were African-American or Latino. The entire controversy over the firings of US Attorneys revolved around the desire of President Bush to rig voting in key contested areas, again by profiling and excluding African American voters. We still have done little to ensure that voting machines have paper trails - or that elections are in the hands of non-partisan electoral commissions rather than local political hacks. Republicans are singling out California for a split electoral vote initiative (Not Texas, not Florida, ONLY California.) Why? Because they want to pull the same electoral college fiat in 2008 that they did in 2000. In addition, Newsweek???s own columnist Fahreed Zakaria argues that democracy can only catch on in an economically developed country and that Chile and South Korea only embarced democracy after a period of authoritarian rule. Couldn???t Putin justify his ???authoritarian??? rule for the same reasons? Putin wins my vote for creep-of-the-year, but where did he get his election-rigging inspiration? From US? By failing to govern ourselves like a model democracy, we have set a horrible precedent for everyone else.

Oh how pure and clean and white as snow America is as it knows how bad Putin is? Yes is always takes a corrupt nation to discover other corrupt nations may I suggest?

Oh America the pure and clean and white as snow, country, wasting time condemning others! Of vourse birds of the same plumage flock together! It takesa corrupt nation to find other corrupt nations! Example: America loves Communist China and Communist China seem to love America as it is the willing Banker of America!

Mikhail Khodorkovsky! He is a criminal. What about tax evasion and the fact he got his company illegally. The west is always holding up Russian criminals as champions of democracy because they are against Putin. We are talking about stuffing the ballot box not the "fall of Russian democracy", remember the Bush 2000 election.

It's all relative. It;s a new democracy and some Newsweek commentator is expecting perfection. We don't have perfection here, far from it, and we are over 230 years into it, taking backward steps the last 30 years.
Yeltsin was a complete disaster, and compared to that Putin has done very well. How it plays out later remains to be seen, and he's trying to hang onto power too much, but Russia is in the process of development and finally they have a structure to move forward. Yes, thanks to Russia's oil as well as stability, the average Russian is doing far far better than they did under Yeltsin. Russians voting for Putin know what they are doing.

"One-party systems are inherently unstable"... right... How many decades has China's Communist Party been stable? That stability has enabled the longest, sustained economic growth the world has ever witnessed.

Sounds like Bush is in good company

Look at Putin's roots. . . .he was, after all, a former KGB officer. Electing him President of Russia was indeed like "asking the fox to guard the hen house". Another good analogy would be "putting a vampire in charge of a blood bank". What do you expect?

The difference is to be elected president in our country, even if it is Bush-as bad a leader he is, it is for a bound number of years. Not to mention when Bush or any other candidate was running for president peacful protests and opposition was not forcefully broken up nor was there any intmidation involved. When you voted were you forced to vote for a certian party by your state controlled bosses? With this "election" (which by the way is questionable if international vote monitoring services can't even do their jobs) Putin has successfully reinstated despotism in Russia. And a our country is blasting him since he's against US hegemony? Don't make me laugh, the US is agaisnt him because he's destorying democracy in the name of life long power.

Bush is no where near as corrupt as Putin. Bush has not had his opposition killed, and he has not decided to simply run for a third term regardless of the laws of the country. Putin is going to be the next Stalin.

Bush is no where near as corrupt as Putin. Bush has not had his opposition killed, and he has not decided to simply run for a third term regardless of the laws of the country. Putin is going to be the next Stalin.

What has happened in Russia is our fault. we promised support,andonce again dropped the ball and turned our backs..... Left them no choice
autodeskmanager@yahoo.com

Brilliant article, and bang on the mark. Tsar Putin may fool his own people, but for the rest of the world, they will not so easily be fooled. Welcome to Cold War II with his KGB style tactics, and TU-5 Bear bombers once again intruding into western air space.
The only thing I disagree with this article is that Putin learned well from his training, and a dictatorial Russia is likely to last for many decades as the high price of commodities (oil, minerals etc) will support this regime for a long time after the prices fall. Forget Iran, its Russia where our ballastic missile radar sites will be once again aimed at in the not too distant future.

I sincerely doubt Russia's election with haunt it any worse than the last two presidential elections here in the States.

So because a country and it's leader are against US hegemony, they are deemed as undemocratic and corrupt. There are much more corrupt leaders and regimes but they are all submissive to the demands of the US and the Bush administration so we dont criticize them. George W. Bush and his corrupt group of cronies have altered democracy to keep the rich elite wealthy, so how can you criticize Putin? At least more Putin has the support of a large majority whereas Bush has lost almost all support from Americans.