buddies

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Shows their government is functioning, improving, evolving, and it shows their commitment to a better Russia. Even if you think Putin is a ruthless dictator, his stint as Prime Minister cannot help but end up having tempered his autocratic streak. I think it is about needing to take a huge landscape full of vicious chaos and turn it back into a nation with morals and good futures for the people that made it so someone willing to take a strong stance, keep a hard line on the imperatives, had to lead that strongly. There is still all kinds of ugly stuff not fully under control, and only if Putin really had been the despot so many accuse or suspect him of being might that be completely under control by now. He's done a brilliant job, and Medvedev is doing a great job too. We have been conditioned to think otherwise, but I only ask that you try to look at what you might only think, as opposed to know, and let a more objective assessment at least be reviewed before you reject it. This is pretty much vital to anyone in any matter, but it's our only hope with propaganda-soaked media and gaining a decent perspective on our world.

[And it seems they are extending the hand but just holding it out there, pending our commitment, not eager to fall into our usual lopsided take on how things should be. That's pretty much the way decent people should behave, says me.]