Bush and Putin Part II

Anthony Perez-Miller commented on my first Bush/Putin post about my prediction that Bush would tone down the democracy talk during their summit:

On the whole, I agree with you: it's worth trying to keep Putin looking towards the West, as opposed to, say, trying to reforge the old Sino-Soviet alliance (which may well happen anyway).

But it seems our President is playing hardball. I didn't see the news conference--I was sleeping or something--but as the Independent portrays it, Bush gave Putin something just shy of a public thrashing. Not quite what I expected.

Indeed. Bush let him have it and it wasn't what I expected either. Looks like Putin is sparring back (this is a Drudge link, so I'm not sure how long it will last):

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed, TIME magazine will report on Monday.

If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."

TIME's John Dickerson: The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides.

This is extremely interesting, however it isn't shocking as cronyism and corruption have been so ingrained within Russian society--it's natural that he would assume everyone else would act in the same manner. I thought Bush would ease the pressure, but instead he put the mind of Putin on public display.