NYT: Putin Seeks to Increase Power, Citing Effort to Fight Terror

Now who do you think Putin learned this trick from?

Putin explained his move by the need to streamline and strengthen the executive branch to make it more capable of combating terror.

While Putin's proposals are more radical affronts to the notion of democracy than George Bush's have been (Bush, at least, hasn't suggested doing away with the election of state governors so that he can appoint them himself), they are qualitatively the same. In a country with no real democratic tradition, a man like Putin can get away with much greater power grabs in times of crisis than can George Bush in a nation with a vital democratic tradition.

I wonder whether the Bushies will have the cojones to condemn this, or if they will realize their own hypocrisy in doing so, if it comes to it?