Putting Putin To The Test

• MIKHAIL METZEL/AFP/Getty Images
• There’s only one Putin here.

“The triumph of Vladimir Putin,” the headline on the cover of last week’s Economist, and “The Loneliness of Vladimir Putin,” the headline on the cover of the most recent New Republic, seem to offer diametrically opposed assessments of Russia’s president. They don’t.

“Dissidents aren’t interesting to anyone,” he said, moving on to a French press of tea to wash down the meal.

I read the New Republic because it gets personal and argumentative and the Economist because it always seems to know what it’s talking about. I wouldn’t advise anybody to read only either one.