Left-wing critics of the Bush Administration love to howl about how the President is rolling back our freedoms and trying to create a “fascist” government.

People who are even remotely connected with reality know that’s complete nonsense. However, what’s happening in Putin’s Russia is very real.

Vladimir Putin actually is rolling back freedoms. The Kremlin has near complete control over who can run for office in Russia. The next President of Russia when Putin steps down will be someone he chooses as his replacement. There are opposition candidates running, but it’s really not possible for them to actually win.

Opposition candidates also run the very real risk of being killed by the FSB formerly known as the KGB, as do journalists, businessmen, or anyone else that offends the Putin.

The NY Times is reporting today that Putin’s latest anti-democratic power grab involves clamping down on election observers.

The Kremlin aims to curtail the activities of election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — just in time for Russia’s December parliamentary elections and March presidential election.

President Vladimir Putin is not trying to bar the observers altogether; that would be too obvious. What he wants is to cut the size of the monitoring missions and stop them from immediately releasing their reports, thus diminishing their impact.

What President Putin is doing is what rolling back Democracy actually looks like, not anything President Bush is doing. As long as liberals can go on TV and call the President a liar and a war criminal and not end up dead, then I think America is still pretty damn free.

-Chris Jones