Lehrer’s last question about Russia produced a surprising response from the candidates. He asked Bush if the president thought he misjudged Putin and if he agrees with Putin’s political changes–to put it so delicately. Bush replied that a democracy needs checks and balances and he doesn’t think Putin believes in them, characterizing their different views on democracy as a “disagreement.” But he praised Putin’s resolve in bringing terrorists “to justice,” saying, “It’s precisely what Vladimir Putin understands so well.”
Kerry, on the other hand, explicitly laid out Putin’s crimes against democracy. “Mr. Putin now controls all the television stations. His political opposition is being put in jail,” he said. While supporting a partnership with Russia, he said, “[W]e always have to stand up for democracy. As George Will said the other day, freedom on the march, not in Russia right now.” What’s surprising about this exchange is that Kerry, not Bush, indicated a willingness to hold Putin accountable for his step-by-step destruction of Russia’s nascent democratic institutions. And it is Bush who showed his failure to understand the irony of Putin’s response to the Beslan horror, which left Russia less capable of dealing with terrorism by placing decision-making into the hands of one person.