"Huh?" says Bush

At the last Democratic presidential candidates debate, Tim Russert, with his trademark sideways leer, asked Clinton and Obama what they knew about the new Russian leader.

It was a "trick" question. Hee, hee. The trick was that he had "Googled" Dmitry Medvedev and had a few facts at hand. He also knew it was unlikely that either Clinton or Obama had given much thought to Medvedev being in the middle of a presidential campaign and all.

One thing about Timmy, he is sneaky!

Both Clinton and Obama responded to the effect that Putin will most likely remain a power, if not the power, in Russia. They simply didn't know much about Medvedev.

Not a bad answer.

Russert sneered.

On the 28th of February, when President Bush was asked a similar question at a news conference, he said pretty much the same thing. Medvedev is an unknown quantity so it's hard to know what to expect - whether Putin or Medvedev will wield the power.

When asked about U.S. - Russian relations in the future, Bush basically said he had no idea, that he wanted to know more about "how Russia intends to conduct foreign policy after Vladimir Putin's presidency. And I can't answer the question yet."

I'll give Bush credit for confessing he knows very little about the new Russian leader or what to expect following the elections there next month. It's nice to see him not swagger and pretend he has all the answers.

I wonder if that would be enough for Russert?