'Nightly News' Praises Putin's Business Bullying
TASS probably couldn’t have done it better. And NBC correspondent Jim Maceda seemed to be channeling Soviet Russia’s official state-run news agency in his glowing account of Russia Prime Minister
Maceda, in a July 6 “Nightly News” segment, spoke admiringly of Putin’s evolution from bureaucrat to Russian president, and now Renaissance man.
“Over the past decade, Vladimir Putin’s morphed into more roles than a
As Maceda reported, Putin’s mere mentioning of prices being too high scared one manager into lowering them.
“’They’re very high,’ said Putin,” Maceda explained. “‘It will be lower tomorrow,’ was the quick reply.”
But the most egregious example of Putin’s brash-and-bully ‘em method involved a cement factory in
“And this showdown at a cement factory near
The NBC foreign correspondent did suggest that the former KGB man wasn’t acting solely from concern about consumers and workers.
“What’s behind the populism?” Maceda said. “Some think Putin’s already campaigning for the 2012 presidential election.”
Still, while many consider Putin and his successor, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, to be the reason behind much of
“Vladimir Putin seems to exert the same power and flair here from his offices in the so-called White House as he did here at his old address just a couple of miles down the Moscow River at the Kremlin,” Maceda said. “Putin watchers say he’s pleased with the new arrangement where Medvedev can hob-knob with influential leaders while he pulls all of the levers behind the scenes.”
