Les Jones

I think her commenter #1 is right -- this is just a terrible column, weaving vast generalities from the barest of anecdotes without even the slightest effort at analysis of actual data. Whatever else you can say about Putin, it seems pretty clear that, more or less across the board, everyone in Russia is better off and more economically secure now, and most of them far more so, than they were when Putin came to power.

I dunno, Steve. People may be better off economically but Putin seems to be an oligarch. I've got another piece to link to tomorrow about his bizarro conception camps.

Sure, Putin's a stinker. Hopefully things will change for the better when/if he no longer has power. But I've never heard an even remotely convincing argument that he hasn't been a vast improvement over Yeltsin, not only on quality of life issues, but on corruption as well. He doesn't have the overwhelming support of his citizens for just no reason at all.

There's oligarchies, and there's oligarchies, and Putin-era Russia is vastly more preferable to, say, Ukraine, which is the acme of non-third world industrial kleptocracies.

The big irony in all this is that in the 41 administration Condi Rice pushed hard the argument, against the strong opposition of hard-line warmongering fools, that rapid, uncontrolled change in the USSR was going to lead to huge problems for them and us (remember the "Chicken Kiev" speech?).

It would have been nice if she had been more forceful, and if 43 had had the sense to listen to her like his daddy did, when she made essentially the same arguments about Iraq.