Ya think, Vlad? Don't forget, this is the man into whose eyes Bush looked and saw his soul. Call me crazy, George, but it appears the honeymoon is over.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

[..]He said that the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends international monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, "into a vulgar instrument of insuring the foreign policy interests of one country."

[..]The world, Mr. Putin said, is now unipolar: "One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign."

Never fret, though, Bush's actions had their defenders. Can you guess who stood up for our global policy?

Senator John McCain (responded)"In today's multipolar world, there is no place for needless confrontation. [..] Will Russia's autocratic turn become more pronounced, its foreign policy more opposed to the principles of the Western democracies and its energy policy used as a tool of intimidation?" he asked. "Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions, at home and abroad, conflict fundamentally with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies."

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. "It was seen as unnecessary bravado."

Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, described the speech as "confrontational," saying, "some of the rhetoric takes us back to the cold war."

Aren't they chivalrous? Rather than deal with the substance of the speech, just complain that mean ole Putin's tone was too confrontational. I mean, how seriously can you take anyone with such confrontational rhetoric?