Yahoo! News - Rice Attacks Putin Over Grip on Power, Media
HAHAHA! No END to the hypocrisy. Why these people don't tell us to just fuck off I'll never know. Of course, maybe that's what the bomb threats are all about.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday called the Kremlin's tight grip on power and the media "very worrying" and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin not to cling on to power beyond his present term.

Rice made some of the sharpest U.S. criticism to date of the Kremlin's record on democracy at the start of a visit to Moscow, the first by the former Soviet specialist since being confirmed as President Bush's foreign minister.

Her two-day trip got off to a shaky start when a bomb threat forced her motorcade to divert as it took her to her hotel from the airport.

"There was a bomb threat called into the hotel. She has gone to the ambassador's residence," the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters.

Security services checked the hotel, but no bomb was found, a U.S. official said.

With meetings scheduled with senior Russian officials including Putin Wednesday, Rice told reporters on board her plane as she flew in to Moscow: "Trends have not been positive on the democratic side."

"The centralization of state power in the presidency at the expense of countervailing institutions like the Duma (parliament lower house) or an independent judiciary is clearly very worrying," she added.

That's rich. Has Condi been out of the USA lately? Someone better slip her a newspaper or somethin'.

Even more pointedly, she also said it "would not be a positive development" if Putin changed the constitution to be able to run for a third successive term.

Somebody write that last quote down. It might come in handy.