From: "George Sherwood" 


"Phil Payne"  wrote in
message news:44b8304c$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1820276,00.html
>
> "George Bush yesterday promised to bring up Russia's human rights record
> during tomorrow's G8 summit, but said he did not intend to
"lecture" or
> "scold" his host, Vladimir Putin."
>
> Did I get that right?  Shrub - head of the most repressive and invasive
> administration since Stalin - is gonna try and lecture Putin?

Statements like this make your arguement look silly.  I know you understand
the things that Stalin did.  Everything you say that is happening in the US
and isn't happening IS happening in many places of Russia now and you
believe every one should look the other way.

Doesn't look like the US is so out of sync on this.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a61fe76a-137f-11db-9d6e-0000779e2340.html
"Only one in five western Europeans believe Vladimir Putin can be
trusted, according to a Financial Times/Harris poll that also showed just
16 per cent of those surveyed would describe Russia as a democracy. The
poll, carried out on the eve of this weekend's summit in St Petersburg of
the Group of Eight industrialised nations, shows that Mr Putin has some way
to go in persuading western Europeans Russia is a reliable friend."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5167784.stm

"Two years ago he took the rare step of criticising President Putin
for concentrating too much power in the Kremlin. Today Mr Lisitsyn is a big
Putin supporter.

When I met him in his office there was a portrait of the president on his
desk. Why did he change his tune?

Well, the authorities opened a criminal case against him and he was
summoned to Moscow. He emerged from his meetings in the Kremlin "on
message", the charges against him dropped."

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