Time Magazine: Why ever would anyone think we don't have a free press?

Vladimir Putin, CBS News Loyalist

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."

Because it's utterly ridiculous to suggest that when people lose their jobs for reporting unflattering things about the president, it might indicate a tiny problem with freedom of the press. Completely, totally ridiculous. Also, note that the blurb does not say that Putin said he thought Bush fired Dan Rather, but that "a senior Administration official" said that's what Putin said.

It was, of course, a private meeting, so there's no transcript of what was actually said. There is a difference between the President ordering that a journalist be fired, and a journalist fired by a corporation whose CEO has said that he supports Bush because he's better for business. If you can get it done the second way, why bother with the first?

This story is now circulating widely on right-wing blogs -- as an example, I suppose, of how stupid and misinformed foreigners are.