Dobby... please... nobody believes you

BBC NEWS | Europe | Putin says US behind poll boycott: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of pushing Western observers into boycotting Russian elections."

...

"The OSCE's election monitoring unit announced earlier this month that it would not attend Russia's election, saying Moscow had refused to provide visas to its staff."

You cannot simultaneously deny visas to election observers and complain about not having election observers. What upsets you is that you can't get election observers you can control.

Putin's latest antics out of WaPo:

"MOSCOW, Nov. 25 -- Russian riot police detained the leaders of an opposition party Sunday and violently dispersed what officials described as an illegal rally and march in St. Petersburg."

Some helpful vocabulary from the folks at Merriam Webster:

Kleptocracy: government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed; also : a particular government of this kind.

Jeffersonian democracy is not for everybody, but a kleptocracy isn't for anybody.

With Tight Grip on Ballot, Putin Is Forcing Foes Out - New York Times

With Tight Grip on Ballot, Putin Is Forcing Foes Out - New York Times: "Nearly eight years after Mr. Putin took office and began tightening his control over all aspects of the Russian government, he will almost certainly with this election succeed in extinguishing the last embers of opposition in Parliament.

Strict new election rules adopted under Mr. Putin, combined with the Kremlin’s dominance over the news media and government agencies, are expected to propel the party that he created, United Russia, to a parliamentary majority even more overwhelming than its current one."

So while the state of affairs in the US is pretty poor, at least we can say we're not as bad as Russia. At least not yet.

I just knew if I blogged enough...

Kasparov's opposition movement holds anti-Putin rally in Moscow - Los Angeles Times: "MOSCOW -- Chess champion Garry Kasparov and allies in Russia's most vocal opposition movement held their latest showdown today with President Vladimir Putin's government, keeping up their frequent protests with a demonstration in central Moscow."

This is actually the second opposition rally in a row that Putin hasn't broken up. He's on a streak.

While I don't get many hits from Moscow, I'm sure this is because President Putin is reading my blog.

Another possibility is that with his stranglehold on the media and his 81% approval rating, he's stopped caring.

But I think it's this blog that changed his mind. I used to just stand around and scream at street signs, but now that I've got a blog I know I'm making a difference.

House Elf has Delusions of Grandeur

‘I’m a pure and absolute democrat. It’s a tragedy that I’m the only one’ News World Europe TimesOnline: "“Of course, I am a pure and absolute democrat,” he said. “But you know what the problem is – not a problem, a real tragedy – that I am alone. There are no such pure democrats in the world. Since Mahatma Gandhi, there has been no one.”"

I was going to say that President Putin has more in common with Dobby the House Elf than Mahatma Ghandi, but Dobby had good intentions and Vladimir Putin does not.

Russia is not obliged to be a Jeffersonian democracy. There's no single perfect system of government that all countries must adopt. But Russia's government, in whatever form it takes, must be responsive to the needs of the people and take care that the people possess the means to assert those needs.

I would think that freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and some form of an elected government would be the standard for any first world country.

Vladimir Putin disagrees.

Vladimir Putin is the guy who closed an opposition newspaper. [here]

Vladimir Putin is the guy who closed the last independent television station in Russia. [here]

Vladimir Putin is the guy who had an opposition leader arrested before a political rally. [here]

Vladimir Putin is the guy who banned direct election of governors as a "counter-terrorism" measure. [here]