Posted by Mark Silva at 12:20 pm CDT
ROSTOCK, Germany – The long-running Bush-Putin show is rehearsing for another appearance this weekend, with the presidents of the United States and Russia planning a joint news conference after their meeting in St. Petersburg on Saturday, according to a Bush administration insider.
When they staged a joint news conference like this in Bratislava, in the winter of 2005, Putin ended up ridiculing the Electoral College victory that handed Bush the White House in 2000 – Putin’s way of tempering the criticism that Bush had been making of Russia’s questionable commitment to democracy. They will approach a social dinner with their wives on Friday night – and then Saturday’s meeting – with Bush planning not to criticize Putin publicly. But once questions start flying – with two chances each from U.S. and Russian press – all bets are off.Putin already has made fun of Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism for Russia, which Cheney made during a visit to Lithuania in early May.
“Russia has a choice to make,” Cheney said in May. “And there is no question that a return to democratic reform in Russia will generate further success for its people and greater respect among fellow nations.
“None of us believes that Russia is fated to become an enemy. A Russia that increasingly shares the values of this community can be a strategic partner and a trusted friend as we work toward common goals.”
Igor Shuvalov, a senior aide to Putin, called Cheney’s remarks “strong and unfair,” but also suggested that as Bush has softpedaled public criticism someone else had to pick up a megaphone. “Everyone does the job he is supposed to do,” Shuvalov said.
Putin had another explanation for it, which he shared with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show this week. “I think your vice president’s expression there is like his bad shot on his hunting trip,” Putin said. This, of course, was an allusion to Cheney’s accidental wounding of Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting trip in February.
“Did I think it was a clever response?” Bush said today in Germany. “It was pretty clever. Actually, quite humorous — not to dis my friend, the Vice President.”
Yet Putin takes the matter fairly seriously.
“What are the motives behind this talk?” Putin said. “I think those are political motives… Our partners always thought about the need to constrain Russia, and this is the leftover of the Cold War. It’s a mistake, because it means that the people do not understand the geo-political changes in the current world. Russia and the United States have stopped being enemies.”
But Bush is lowering expectations for any confrontation with Putin.
“My own view of dealing with President Putin… is that nobody really likes to be lectured a lot, and if you want to be an effective person, what you don’t go is scold the person publicly all the time,” Bush said today. “You remind him where we may have a difference of opinion, but you do so in a respectful way, so you can then sit down and have a constructive dialogue.”
