Re: [A-List] James Petras on Beslan - fire away

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) April 22, 1996, Monday, FINAL EDITION

A little help from his friend; Clinton invokes Abraham Lincoln to boost
Yeltsin's bid for re-election

BYLINE: MIKE TRICKEY; SOUTHAM NEWSPAPERS; SOUTHAM NEWS

DATELINE: MOSCOW

President Bill Clinton was careful not to overtly take sides in Russia's
election campaign during his weekend visit to Russia, but he left little
doubt he's pulling hard for the re-election of his friend President
Boris Yeltsin.

Yesterday's meeting - the 10th between the first generation of post-Cold
War presidents - was historic in its timing. Both men are locked in
re-election battles and while Clinton appears to have a safe lead,
Yeltsin is clearly in trouble.

Polls show him trailing his Communist rival who is riding a surge of
Soviet nostalgia fuelled by the continuing impoverishment of the masses,
growing unemployment and a perception that Russia is no longer taken
seriously in the West.

After five hours of talks and a Red Square walkabout carefully
orchestrated for the most positive television pictures, Clinton stressed
equality as he talked of the growing partnership between the two
countries. He also praised the role Yeltsin has played in developing a
democratic, market-oriented state and even defended the Kremlin's policy
in the unpopular Chechen civil war, which has left at least 40,000 dead.

"I would remind you that we once had a civil war in our country in which
we lost on a per-capita basis far more people than we lost in any of the
wars of the 20th century over the proposition that Abraham Lincoln gave
his life for - that no state had a right to withdraw from our region,"
Clinton told reporters at a news conference.

That argument is the same one made two weeks ago by Foreign Minister
Yevgeny Primakov who surprised visiting Canadian Foreign Affairs
Minister Lloyd Axworthy by linking the separatist problems facing both
Russia and Canada. When asked if Russia might be willing to try the
Canadian approach of dialogue and referenda, Primakov instead talked
about the American civil war.

Clinton made no response to Yeltsin's emphatic denial that any fighting
has occurred in Chechnya since he unilaterally declared a ceasefire
March 31. Some of the bloodiest battles of the war have occurred in the
past three weeks, but Yeltsin blames that on the few remaining "bandits"
who have not joined the rest of the separatist region in signing peace
deals with Russia.

===

Bush's love of Pootie-Poot Putin

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday May 20, 2002
The Guardian

At a historic summit in Moscow this week, President George Bush will
mark what he claims is the final putting to rest of the cold war, by
shaking hands with his new best friend, Pootie-Poot.
That, according to today's issue of Time magazine, is the president's
nickname for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. At times of tension
between the two countries, we are told, Mr Bush is known to tell his
staff: "Get me Pootie-Poot on the phone."

Since his days as head cheerleader at a private academy in Andover, Mr
Bush has prided himself on his bonhomie, which relies heavily on the use
of nicknames.

He refers to his political adviser, Karl Rove, as "Boy Genius" and, as
Texas governor, introduced a forest service official as "Tree Man".

The nicknames have helped build his "regular guy" image, but Pootie-Poot
sounds more like a throwback to the preppy vocabulary of his father, who
was famous for such phrases as "I'm in deep doo-doo".

A presidential nickname is considered a badge of honour among members of
Congress and journalists. It suggests you have reached the inner circle.

Mr Putin seems to have worked hard to earn his sobriquet, researching
the US president's quirks before their first meeting in Slovenia in June.

The US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, hailed the
relationship between the two men as epoch-making.

"To see the kind of relationship that presidents Bush and Putin have
developed and to see Russia firmly anchored in the west," she said,
"that's really a dream of 300 years, not just of the post-cold war era".

Time magazine quoted a former Putin aide as saying the Russian leader
"devoured an enormous amount of information on Bush and everything
related to him".

It seemed to work. Before the Ljubljana encounter, the Bush
administration dismissed Mr Putin as a Soviet throwback, but afterwards
Mr Bush claimed: "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense
of his soul."

Before this week's summit, Mr Bush is apparently doing a bit more
research on the Russian soul.

Ms Rice has reportedly given him a reading list including Dostoevsky's
Crime and Punishment.

The message underlying the advice is unclear. Perhaps the guilt-ridden
axe-murderer of the novel is supposed to be post-Soviet Pootie-Poot in
deep doo-doo.


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