VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

It turns out that blatant racists aren't the only interesting appointments to Silvio Berlusconi's new cabinet. Last month, Berlusconi publicly mocked spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for hiring too many women, saying, “Zapatero has formed a government that is too pink, something that we cannot do in Italy because there is a prevalence of men in politics and it isn’t easy to find women who are qualified.”

Well it turns out that Berlusconi did manage to find a few, including his new equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna, a former Miss Italy runner-up and topless model turned parliamentarian.  The story is actually even more ridiculous since the two have a history. Berlusconi once told Carfagna at a banquet that he would marry her if he was single and reminded her of the medieval law letting estate lords deflower virgins on their wedding night. This, in turn, provoked a public letter-writing war between Berlusconi and his wife that played out in the pages of Italy's newspapers. Berlusconi has previously remarked that right-wing female politicians are more beautiful and the fact that his new environment minister was once named "Miss Parliament" is also probably not a coincidence.

The Berlusconi show is back in town, folks.

Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images

Citizens of Serbia will head to the polls again on Sunday, this time to elect a new parliament (the last one held together less than a year).  It looks to be a close election, with the pro-European Democratic coalition polling just behind the nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

According to Belgrade’s bookies, odds fall in the nationalists' favor. In the PM race, most people are putting their money on either the current caretaker prime minister, Vojslav Kostunica or Tomislav “the Undertaker” Nikolic (no, not The Undertaker, though Nikolic, whose nickname stems from his former profession as a cemetery overseer, is not much better).

If Sunday’s elections follow the gamblers’ gut, Serbia’s future will not be bright.  Although staunchly opposed to Milosevic back in the 1990s, Prime Minister Kostunica has proved just as power hungry, and just as willing to play on Serbia’s Kosovo myth, as was Milosevic himself. And a Serbia with Nikolic at the helm would be even uglier. Nikolic is adamant that he’s “no Milosevic,” but only because Milosevic wasn't nationalist enough for his taste. Needless to say, both men oppose European integration as long as most of Europe continues to recognize Kosovo.

Ironically,  a pro-Europe prime minister could only come out of a coalition that includes the leftist parties and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) -- Milosevic's former party. SPS isn't quite what it used to be, but its inclusion still shows how weak the pro-Europe forces in Serbia's politics are.

ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images

In the second day of an escalating standoff between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, there are reports of at least one death and five injuries and the possibility of civil war seems less far-fetched.

The unrest first broke out after the government tried to cut into Hezbollah's operations by banning a Hezbollah-run telecommunications network in southern Lebanon. The network was likely Hezbollah's primary means of communication during its 2006 war with Israel. 

Then, reports that Hezbollah had installed cameras near the Beirut airport to monitor the movements of anti-Syria politicians -- possibly to assassinate them -- led the government to dismiss the airport's security chief. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to keep the employee in his post and to strike back at these affronts, irking Lebanon's top Sunni leader Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani:

We used to think that Hezbollah is concerned with fighting the Israeli occupation, and all of a sudden it is turning to be a militant force to occupy Beirut, and this is why we call upon the Arab and Islamic nations to help us and stop these harmful aggressions in Lebanon."

Meanwhile, Ya Libnan makes an interesting point that Nasrallah's campaign may achieve the very thing Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. General Dan Halutz threatened at the start of the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006: to send the country back twenty years. Hezbollah supporters' tent camps have paralyzed parts of downtown Beirut and now they are springing up along the road to the airport which will be a vital source of tourism revenue this summer. It's shaping up to be yet another example of Hezbollah's "resistance" hurting the very people it claims to fight for.

Dana Milbank on the twilight of the Bush presidency:

Eight months before the end of his second term, President Bush is forgotten but not gone. Power has shifted to Congress, attention has moved to the campaign trail, and the White House seems at times to be just going through the motions. For many reporters who remain on the White House beat, it has become a time to phone it in -- literally.

Four minutes after the scheduled start time for yesterday's White House briefing, only 14 of the 49 seats were occupied -- and the 14 included flamboyant radio host Lester Kinsolving, who sat in the Bloomberg News seat; Raghubir Goyal of an obscure Indian American publication, who occupied the New York Times chair; and a foreign journalist in the back row, perusing the White House's Cinco de Mayo dinner menu. Though attendance eventually swelled to 28, many of the nation's leading news outlets left their chairs empty, among them National Public Radio, the Washington Times, the New York Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune and the Politico.

When Hillary Clinton signed on to John McCain's proposal to suspend the 18.4-cent federal gas tax this summer and Barack Obama didn't, the Democratic candidates suddenly had a real substantive difference to debate.

The trouble is, there's not much to argue about. Everyone who's looked at this knows that a gas-tax holiday is a silly idea. With gasoline supplies pretty much fixed in the short term, demand will increase and the price will go back up. But instead of the U.S. government capturing that revenue, the oil companies will pocket it. Factcheck.org tried and failed to find a single economist who thought gas prices would drop as a result of the holiday. PBS couldn't find a supporter, either.

Asked about this by ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday, Hillary sniffed, "I'm not going to put in my lot with economists." What's it going to be then, prayer circles?

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Now, you might say: There's almost zero chance this proposal will go anywhere, so what's the harm? Well, it makes no sense to say you're for "energy independence" while vowing to cut gas taxes. If anything, the U.S. government should raise the federal gas tax to at least 50 cents a gallon, not cut it. Or better yet, tax carbon and bring coal emissions into the mix, too. But above all, don't mislead voters about the choices before them.

AFP/Getty Images

I figured something was up when Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) kept calling Kosovo "Kosova" (the Albanian pronunciation) at the most recent House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on the Balkans. Turns out Engel's swapped the last "o" in Kosovo for a central boulevard in the heart of Pec, a majority Albanian city in western Kosovo that was once the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch (back in the 15th century, that is).

Sewell Chan, NYT:

It felt a bit surreal on Sunday, during a visit to Pec … to encounter a main boulevard named for Representative Eliot L. Engel, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester and Rockland Counties.

Engel has been a strong advocate for Kosovo and introduced the House Resolution supporting its unilateral declaration of independence last February. According to Chan:

The makeup of Mr. Engel's constituency may help explain his advocacy for the province… The Albanian population in the Bronx took root in the 1970s, Mr. Engel remembered. "A lot of them were superintendents when they came,” he said. Groups of relatives or friends would save up money and buy a building, which they would manage. The population surged again in the 1990s fueled in large part by the Kosovo crisis and prompting efforts to organize Albanian-Americans."

New York Albanians are quite the force to be reckoned with. According to Stacy Sullivan in her book Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America, one Kosovar Albanian roofer in Brooklyn helped raise $30 million to fund and outfit the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) -- and largely with American-made guns. At least loopholes in American gun laws have worked out well somewhere.

The folks at Cuban Transition Project at the University of Miami have a handy chart on the shocking extent of Castro family involvement in the Cuban regime. Raúl is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends:

During the past few years family members of both Fidel and Raúl Castro have come to occupy important positions in Cuba's government. This Castro clan represents in addition to the military, the security apparatus and the Communist Party, a significant force in Cuba's political and economic structures.

Here's the list:

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart

Relationship: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Basic Industry

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Col. Alejandro Raúl Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's son

Position: Chief, Intelligence Information Services, Ministry of the Interior; Coordinator, Intelligence Exchange with China

 

Jorge Rey/Getty Images

Ramón Castro Ruz

Position: Fidel and Raúl's oldest brother

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Sugar

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Dr. Antonio Castro Soto

Position: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Investment Chief, Frank Pais Hospital. Doctor for Cuba's baseball team

 

ALEJANDRO ERNESTO/AFP/Getty Images

Major Raúl Alejandro Rodríguez Castro

Position: Raúl Castro's grandson

Position: Raúl Castro's military guard in charge of his personal security

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Deborah Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Education

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Mariela Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Head, Center for Sexual Education

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Marcos Portal León

Position: Married to Raúl Castro's niece

Position: In charge of nickel industry, member of the Central Committee of Cuba's Communist Party

 

No pictures available:

Col. Luís Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, Raúl Castro's son-in-law

Chief Executive Officer of Grupo GAESA (Grupo de Administración de Empresas, S.A.) which supervises military enterprises

Alfonsito Fraga, Related to Raúl Castro

Ministry of Foreign Relations

Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision to fire 60 judges last November helped set in motion the political crisis that led to his party's electoral defeat. But since its February victory, Pakistan's ruling coalition has failed to live up to its campaign promise to reinstate the judges -- to the relief of Musharraf, whose reelection might be declared illegal if the old Supreme Court were to return.

Today, a breakthrough was finally made as coalition leaders Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistani Muslim League-N, and Pakistan People's Party leader (and Benazir Bhutto's widower) Asif Zardari, agreed in Dubai that legislation to reinstate the judges will be brought to Parliament on May 12. The announcement came two days after the coalition's self-imposed deadline for restoring the judges.

Officially, the deadlock was caused by disagreement over whether the reinstatement should be accompanied by constitutional changes, with Zardari was pushing for new rules to prevent the judges from being sacked again in the future. (Unofficially, Zardari didn't want to bring back Musharraf's arch-enemy, former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, for fear that the latter would revive corruption charges that the Musharraf-appointed court had dismissed.)

The agreement appears to be a victory for Sharif, who hopes the speedy reinstatement of the judges will lay the groundwork for Musharraf's ouster. Zardari has a different view -- he says he wants to gradually erode Musharraf's power through legislation, and worries that an injunction against the president will be meaningless if the military doesn't play along. Pakistan may have to wait until after May 12 to see who's right.

STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, just 42 days after the invasion of Iraq. 

This morning, the Center for American Progress hosted a speech by Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran, voted to authorize the war in 2003, but has since become one of its most strident critics. As he put it today:

I was skeptical about giving the president authorization to go to war in 2003, but I gave this president the benefit of the doubt. That decision was a mistake. In Vietnam, we never had a strategy to win. In Iraq, we never had a strategy.

Murtha, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, agrees with a majority of retired and active military officers that Iraq has left the U.S. military unprepared for future threats. He's also very concerned about China's military buildup, and thinks leaders in Beijing are watching the situation closely:

We must refocus our attention to the threats down the road. If you remember in World War II, we cut off the oil supply of the Japanese when they attacked. us. Now, I don't say that's going to happen with China. But one thing's for sure, if they misperceive our readiness to act, we're going to have a real problem.

While it's pretty unlikely that the Chinese are planning another Pearl Harbor (the line was absent from Murtha's prepared remarks so he may have ad-libbed it), it's fair to say that Iraq has decreased both U.S. military readiness and diplomatic standing.  

After five years, the administration seems unwilling to come to terms with what an embarassment "Mission Accomplished" was. As of yesterday, White House spokesperson Dana Perino was still insisting that Bush was misinterpreted. "Mission Accomplished," she claimed, only referred to "sailors who are on this ship on their mission" (though it's hard to believe that even she buys that line). However they try to spin it, "Mission Accomplished" will haunt the Bush administration as a symbol of the myopia and reckless optimism that characterized the early days of the Iraq war.

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Malaysia's former prime minister of 22 years, Mahathir Mohamad, has a blog in English. It's named "Chedet" after his pen name, "Che Det" or "Mr. Det," from his days as a journalist. "Det" is short for "Mahadet," another way to pronounce his name.

Most new bloggers start out by welcoming their readers, explaining why they are blogging, and giving an overview of the subjects they plan to write about. Not so Mahathir, who gives the impression of a man who doesn't think he has to explain himself to anyone. (He was probably motivated by the blogging success of opposition politicians and the fact that the media has been ignoring his escalating criticisms of the current prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.)

If you're hoping for some of Mahathir's signature anti-Western rants, you'll be sorely disappointed. His first and so far only post is a rather boring critique of Abdullah's judicial reforms, though this is some quality armchair quarterbacking:

Is the Government proposing to work with the opposition on this issue, and so display its weakness? Will there be a quid pro quo, a bargain with the opposition? It would be interesting to see how the PM proposes to deal with this.

My humble blogging advice for you, Dr. Mahathir? Respond to FP's interview with your estranged protégé Anwar Ibrahim, who says you "underestimated" him and wrongly thought you could break him in prison. Blog readers always love a good controversy, and I promise we will link to you.

Over at the Huffington Post, National Interest Senior Editor Jacob Heilbrunn worries that realists such as Kissinger and Scowcroft have failed to groom a generation of young Republicans to follow in their pragmatic foreign-policy footsteps:

[W]hile Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and other realist elders are consulted by [John] McCain, his heart is with the younger neocons, the 'beavers,' in the words of one McCain supporter, who draft the speeches and get the grunt work done ... the result is disastrous recommendations such as threatening to expel Russia from the G-8.... The gap -- and it is fundamental -- in the GOP today is generational. The elderly realists haven't groomed anyone to replace them. The neocons have."

I think the simplest explanation for why the neocon voices within the McCain campaign are the loudest is that in recent years McCain has most closely identified with them ideologically. That's why, as I pointed out a couple months ago, he surrounded himself with foreign-policy minds like Mark Salter, Daniel McKivergan, Marshall Wittmann, and Randy Scheunemann (though McCain has never really fully signed on to the neocon cause).

As for the generational gap between GOP realists and neocons, Heilbrunn is probably right that it exists. But when I talk to young Republicans, I get the sense that, thanks to the Iraq war, the problem will be self-correcting. Just because a group of young realists hasn't found a home in the McCain camp doesn't mean they aren't out there. Still, it is unfortunate that they had to come to their thinking based on a botched war instead of being groomed by the old guard.

Matt Yglesias complains about the media's campaign coverage, and offers a plausible reason as to why there's such a relentless focus on trivia:

What's driving this, I think, are the dual desires to be "tough" and to be "objective." In particular, being objective is thought to preclude being tough about public policy because that would entail picking sides in ideology-inflicted arguments. And people didn't get into this business in order to provide softball coverage. So instead you ask tough questions about process or about trivia, even though there's little evidence that these are the subjects about which people want to hear.

I don't buy this last bit, because, sadly, I think there is plenty of evidence that more people are actually interested in trivia than they are the issues. Why did the Drudge Report pull in 590 million "page loads" in March? Why has the horserace-centric Politico been such a resounding success? If Yglesias really believed that more people are interested in substance, he should use his book earnings to open a new network devoted to hashing out the issues and see how it fares.

He could call it... "PBS."

OLIVIER MATTHYS/AFP/Getty Images

Today is April 28, which might not seem like that big a deal unless you live in Turkmenistan. Along with some other eccentric initiatives, the country's late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov decided in 1999 to rename all the months after himself and members of his family. January was called Turkmenbashi, or "Father of the Turkmen," which was Niyazov's preferred title. April became Gurbansoltan, his mother's name.

Needless to say, this caused some confusion. The new names were mostly used for official documents. An initiative has now been introduced in the parliament to restore the original names and Turkmenistan's new president, the notably less insane Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, appears receptive to the idea.

Berdymukhammedov seems anxious to change his country's reputation as the North Korea of Central Asia by establishing economic ties with Europe and slowly dismantling his predecessor's personality cult. Changing back the calendar is a good step, but Turkmenistan can't really turn the corner until the government is willing to acknowledge the more serious crimes of Niyazov's brutal regime.

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

Political appointees who are forced to resign tend to go quietly, thanking their boss for an opportunity to serve the nation and vowing to spend more time with their families.

Not so Danesh Jaafari (left), the ousted Iranian economy and finance minister. In stepping down from his post on Tuesday, he slammed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration in terms that, per the AFP, had "until now been almost unknown in Iranian politics."

During my time, there was no positive attitude towards previous experiences or experienced people and there was no plan for the future," he said in the speech quoted by the Fars news agency.

"Peripheral issues which were not of dire importance to the nation were given priority.

"For example, changing the nation's time took months of our time," he complained.

What is it with authoritarian regimes and clocks? Anyway, this is the best part:

For example the deputy in charge of the economy... is a veterinarian and he does not know much about economy," he added.

Iran's inflation is running at nearly 18 percent and unemployment could be as high as 30 percent, according to the Associated Press. Ahmadinejad has pushed infrastructure spending and handouts to the poor that have only added inflationary fuel to the fire, policies that Jaafari says he opposed while in office. It should be interesting to watch what happens next, with Ahmadinejad up for reelection in 2009.

After its surprisingly strong showing in Italian parliamentary elections last week, the quasi-separatist, anti-immigrant Northern League Party is likely to take over several key posts in Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet including the interior, reforms, and agriculture ministries. The League's control of the Interior Ministry puts Italy's immigration policy is in the hands of a party whose leaders have suggested that the navy fire on rafts carrying illegal immigrants.

Italy's new deputy prime minister is likely to be Roberto Calderoli, a guy who proudly wears T-shirts emblazoned with the Danish Mohammed cartoons, promoted a "pig day" protest in a Muslim neighborhood, and, after the Italian team's World Cup victory, dismissed their French opponents as "negroes, communists and Muslims."

Berlusconi, who mocked his Spanish counterpart for appointing too many women to top posts, may want to watch his words considering the classy fellows in his own cabinet.

PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty

When I read today that Hillary Clinton is playing John Mellencamp's "Small Town" at her rallies this week, I had to laugh. Because, seriously? How literal are we going to get here? (Plus, I had to wonder whether Mellencamp, a former Edwards supporter, has endorsed anyone yet. He famously asked John McCain to stop playing his songs at rallies earlier this year.)

And in my 5-minute Google search to find out whether Mellencamp's made a pick, I discovered that Bruce Springsteen has just announced this afternoon that he's backing Obama. Here's what Mr. Working Class America said about Bittergate:

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where '...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.'

Does this mean no more Springsteen songs at Clinton rallies?

UPDATE: A Getty Images search for "Springsteen Obama" brings this result:

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin took another step toward consolidating his post-presidency powers Tuesday by accepting the position of chairman of the United Russia Party, the loyal faction that has supported the president throughout his term. The only thing is, he's not actually joining the party. At Putin's request, United Russia has tweaked the rules so that Putin can be chairman without actually being a member.

President-elect Dmitry Medvedev also refused party membership, which makes sense. It wouldn't look very good for Russia's president to be outranked in the party by his own prime minister. But Putin's legal maneuvering is more unexpected and more significant. By maintaining his political independence, Putin may be signalling that he has no intention of ceding his central position in Russian politics.

As chairman Putin now effectively controls the State Duma, where United Russia holds an overwhelming majority. This could give him the power to approve new legislation, change the Russian constitution, or initiate impeachment proceedings against Medvedev. United Russia's overwhelming power is already drawing comparisons to the old Soviet Communist Party. Together with last week's announcement that the prime minister (who, incidentally, is also Putin) will control the appointment of regional envoys, there seems to be a major restructuring of power away from the Kremlin to the Russian "White House," where Putin will be taking up residence next month.

But by remaining somewhat removed from the party, Putin can still appear above the  fray of the Duma and maintain his highly personalized political "brand." He is also free to criticize the party as he did yesterday, saying, "It should be debureaucratized and cleansed of strange people pursuing only selfish goals." (This might thin the ranks quite a bit.)

The big unknown is what Medvedev thinks about all of this. It's now clear that Vladimir Vladimirovich has no intention of fading away. The new president will need all his wits about him if he plans to be more than a figurehead. Something for Russia's yogi-in-chief to meditate on.

PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images

In summer 2001, I was on a trip to Kathmandu, Nepal with some friends from college. It just so happened that my long-planned visit came just after the royal heir supposedly went crazy, machine-gunned his father and dozens of palace guards, and then committed suicide (naturally, by shooting himself in the back with an AK-47). The king's unpopular brother, who seemed a lot like Scar from The Lion King, took power. Meanwhile, Maoist insurgents held something like seven provinces at the time.

Needless to say, the country was a bit on edge when my friends and I arrived. We felt safe, but it often seemed like we were the only tourists around.

I remember taking a rickety taxi out to see the famed "monkey temple," a.k.a. Swayambhunath stupa. On the way, I craned my neck incredulously to see a bombed-out bus that looked like it might still be smoldering. "What's that?" I asked the driver. "Don't worry," he laughed. "It's just the Maoist rebels." He assured me that they only killed policemen. When I returned to my hotel that evening, a note from the U.S. Embassy warned us not to go to the attached casino, which had received bomb threats.

Nearly seven years later, the Maoists are going to be in charge. Ain't democracy grand?

GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary on May 8, but a few gray clouds are already gathering over an otherwise euphoric national holiday. The New York Times yesterday highlighted a noticeable strain of cynicism among Israeli citizens as the date approaches.

For example, a recent poll asking people who they want as next prime minister produced a majority response of "none of the above," and a petition against wasting money on anniversary "festivities whose primary purpose is to give a stage to the politicians" gained surprising popularity. The theme of the festivities is "Strengthening Israel's Children" but a recent study shows that one in three children lives in poverty. Coupled with school strikes and ongoing frustration over the security situation, Israelis are having a hard time mustering up much enthusiasm.

Recent polls show a majority of Israelis favor a modest celebration so that money can be used in other areas like health and education. The anniversary plans reflect this in part by focusing on more lasting investments: a cross-country bike trail, completion of a Sea of Galilee footpath, and maintenance of memorials that will involve the country's youth. There will still be typical national celebration staples like light shows, beach parties, and military displays.

Sever Plocker with Yediot Aharonot said:

Have we gone mad?...Has something gone wrong with our collective mind? The State of Israel is about to mark 60 years of independence in an atmosphere of bitterness, depression and public reluctance 'to waste the money on celebrations.'"

While I agree that politicians shouldn't hijack the occasion for their gain, it doesn't seem right for people to take the wind out of the national sails just because they want to gripe.  It's a national day -- why not act like it and show some pride?

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

What do Russians think about the U.S. electoral campaign? I spoke with two distinguished Russian scholars last night here at the Salzburg seminar I'm attending this week.

The first scholar told me that the hardliners and the security establishment are eager to see John McCain in power. He's more or less a known quantity, and his recent statements about ejecting Russia from the G8 will make it easier for them to make the case that the United States seeks to humiliate and corner Russia. A McCain election would be seen as evidence that Americans want to continue George W. Bush's policies, which are generally unpopular in Russia.

On the other hand, the scholar said, Republican presidents from Nixon to Ford to Reagan have a much better track record in making overtures to Russia, perhaps because they don't fear being painted as weak.

Both scholars, who come from the liberal end of the political spectrum in Russia, seemed intrigued by Barack Obama as someone who could offer a "fresh start" in U.S.-Russia relations. They weren't so comfortable, however, when I told them that Michael McFaul is Obama's main Russia advisor. McFaul, a past FP contributor, is well known in Russian foreign-policy circles for his harsh criticism of Putin's democratic credentials.

Clinton would be more predictable, given that her main Russia advisor is Stephen Sestanovich. His 2006 report for the Council on Foreign Relations was read closely in Russian political circles. But Richard Holbrooke, another Clinton advisor and a potential secretary of state, is seen as hostile to Russian interests for his role in the Balkans during the 1990s. When I told them that it's not inconceviable that Holbrooke would get a top job even under Obama, they weren't too psyched.

Blake Hounshell is Web Editor of ForeignPolicy.com. He has been blogging this week from the Salzburg Global Seminar session on Russia: The 2020 Perspective.