Have you noticed a trend in news coverage?
Russia’s bigwig Vladimir Putin has now taken world center stage as a kind of “high concept” leader — someone who has developed a finely-etched personality that comes across strongly in print and broadcast news reports. In this age of personality-increases-clout-politics acquiring an immediately recognizeable media personality is a notable development in political evolution. The Telegraph:
The big surprise of the G8 summit was its host: once dismissed as a grey bureaucrat, Vladimir Putin has grown in both confidence and in guile.
Mr Putin bestrode proceedings, picking off his opponents, in particular President George W Bush and Tony Blair, with ease.
“What makes Putin such a formidable opponent is that he knows how to identify your weak spot and he exploits it mercilessly,” said a western diplomat. “Unlike any other G8 leader, he can use the most undiplomatic language and he can get away with it.”
The Telegraph notes that some didn’t think Putin would come out of the G8 meeting as well as he did:
His year at the helm of the G8 began badly as Russia cut off gas to Ukraine, a move that interrupted supplies to western Europe. Simultaneously, his democratic credentials were under increasing scrutiny after a law was passed that seemed to restrict human rights groups.
With Russia seemingly sliding towards autocracy at an alarming rate, America began to ratchet up its criticism. Some senators even called for Russia to be expelled from the G8.
Many expected Mr Putin to dominate the summit for all the wrong reasons, as western leaders dressed him down for his failings.
What happened? One thing: the violence in Israel and Lebanon…which went to the front-burner of must-discuss topics. The paper notes:
In public it was only Mr Bush who raised the issue of Mr Putin’s democratic record, and then only obliquely.
But it was enough to bring out the showman in the Russian president, whose retort ran along the lines of: “Democracy? You mean like the democracy you introduced in Iraq?” Mr Bush could only stand beside him and smirk.
After that, no other leader bothered to try, at least in public. As democracy slipped off the agenda, Mr Putin basked in his role as host.
In some ways it was not surprising that he came across as the most confident of the leaders. Four of the others – Mr Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac of France and Junichiro Koizumi of Japan – are losing popularity at home and are nearing the end of their careers.
The others – Angela Merkel of Germany, Romano Prodi of Italy and Stephen Harper of Canada – are still too new in their posts to present much of a challenge.
Yet no matter how much he humiliates his fellow statesmen, Mr Putin seems to be able to get away with it. That is partly because, despite his dour public persona, he charms those who meet him in private – even hardened politicians. He gives the impression, say those who know him, of not just listening to every word his visitor utters but of agreeing wholeheartedly with it too.
In other words: he has some strong political skills that he may not be exercise in democratic ways (he is clearly an autocrat) but he knows how to effectively employ them with elites who count…which is most likely how he rose to his position in the KGB.
What can other leaders do? As the Telegraph notes, not a whole heck of a lot. Putin placated the bigwigs at the summit by promising to step down by 2008 — which seemed enough to satisfy them (but it’s likely few believe him). And then there’s this reason:
Unlike every country apart from America, Russia is directly involved in all the major crises: North Korea, Iran and Israel. On all three, it sees things differently from the White House and clashes over democratic issues risk making Russia more recalcitrant on the world stage, diplomats say.
In other words: he’s a major player because his country is involved in the major looming and heating up hot points…and because he has some personal political talents that he skillfully puts to use in one-on-one situations.
Plus the fact that with his new penchant for the colorful, quick (and in the case of how he responded to Bush, the put-down) quote, he is emerging as a personality in media coverage — and not in as negative a way as others….such as Iran’s president.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.