The soul of President Medvedev

ON first meeting Vladimir Putin, President Bush looked him in the eye and got "a sense of his soul." And that sense was that the Russian leader was straightforward and trustworthy. That was in 2001 and may have been the high point of U.S.-Russian relations under Bush and Putin.

Now there's a new president set to take over, Dmitry Medvedev, and no U.S. leader is looking into his soul or even professing to know very much about him. In answer to a sandbag question at the last debate, Hillary Clinton did know his last name, although she stumbled over its pronunciation.

Putin organized Sunday's election; Medvedev got better than 70 percent of the vote against three opponents, handpicked because they put the "token" in the phrase "token opposition."

A European observer group said the election was neither free nor fair but reflected the will of the Russian people, and that's as good a way as any to describe the proceedings. Under Putin, the Kremlin steadily tightened its control over Russian political life. Perhaps as a sign that won't change under Medvedev, the day after his election Russian police violently broke up a small opposition demonstration but allowed a pro-Kremlin group to march on the U.S. Embassy.

Medvedev has been very comfortable as a top aide to Putin for the last eight years. Will he be content with that status, or will he want to start exercising power on his own? Considering that he is surrounded by other Putin-handpicked officials, could he even do so if he wanted to?

The next American president should certainly look Medvedev in the eye when they first meet, but should probably reserve judgment on his soul.

Scripps Howard

Editorial

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