While our Presidential 'Wannabe's" try to out-Liberal each other...

....... there are darker clouds billowing over Mother Russia. "W" may have looked into Putin's heart and seen a good man, but he should have put down those EKG's and looked at this man's EEG's and seen the rising TSAR of Russia! From the London Daily Mail comes a picture of the former KBG leader who has never forgiven the 'West' (that's us, as in U.S. folks) for breaking up the Russian Empire! Now with his hand tightly around the throat of the country, it's oil reserves, missile systems and other resources ---- what comes next?

Russia: A totalitarian regime in thrall to a Tsar who's creating the new Fascist empire

By" JONATHAN DIMBLEBY -

As ex-President Putin settles in to his new role as Prime Minister, he has every reason to congratulate himself.
After all, he has not only written the script for his constitutional coup d'etat, but staged the play and given himself the starring role as well.
Of course, he has given a walk-on role to Dmitry Medvedev, his personally anointed successor.
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The Russian bear: Despite a new President, Vladimir Putin remains in overall control
But the transfer of power from Putin to his Little Sir Echo, Medvedev, and the show of military strength with those soldiers and clapped-out missiles in Red Square on Victory Day which followed it last week, made it clear who is really in charge.

No decision of any significance for the Russian people or the rest of us will be made in the foreseeable future without the say - so of Medvedev's unsmiling master.
Just before he stood down as President, Putin declared: "I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning til night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results."

As he surveys the nation today he reminds me of that chilling poem by Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting, in which the dreaded bird sits at the top of a tall tree musing: "Now I hold all Creation in my foot - I kill as I please because it is all mine - I am going to keep things like this."

In a way he is right to be so self-satisfied. He has told the Russian people that life is much better than it was before he took over - and, after a journey of some 10,000 miles across the largest country in the world for a new book and BBC TV series, I am in no doubt that the majority of his subjects believe him.

I travelled from cities to towns to villages by road, rail and boat and met a great diversity of people - from St Petersburg glitterati to impoverished potato-pickers, from a witch who charms the sprites of the forest to the mountain herdsmen who worship fire and water, from oilmen to woodcutters.
It was an exhilarating and revelatory experience in a land of extremes. But it was also deeply disturbing.

Despite the fact that Putin's Russia is increasingly autocratic and irredeemably corrupt, the man himself - their born-again Tsar - is overwhelmingly regarded as the answer to the nation's prayers. [......]

Look into those eyes and feel the chill! For those of you who would like to read the rest of this rather lengthy but well researched report, go to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=566931&in_page_id=1811