From Holden:

Either Bill Safire has lost faith or his check from Karl Rove did not come this month.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Safire, let me start with you. Busy week for the president, went to Europe, met with Russian President Putin. Give him a grade.

MR. SAFIRE: I was disheartened and dismayed by the way he went eyeball to eyeball with President Putin and Bush blinked. Here is a president who has been talking eloquently about extending freedom and fighting for democracy around the world in his inaugural address and the State of the Union. And as soon as he comes up against the man who is doing more to stop the extension of freedom than anybody else, he wimps out all of a sudden. I think this was as big a blunder as his father made when he gave the chicken Kiev speech, saying, “Stay within the Soviet Union.”

I think most accommodationists and certainly everybody in the State Department is delighted with the way Bush poured praise on Putin, and I think it’s terrible. This was the time to stand up to him and say, “Hey, you’re providing arms to Syria. You just sent 100,000 Kalashnikovs to Castro’s friend who runs Venezuela. You’re helping Iran develop nuclear bombs, and you ought to stop it. And worst of all, you’re rolling back democracy in Russia.” And so what does he do? He talks about my friend, Vladimir.

And how can I let a link to yesterday’s Meet the Press go by without highlighting this bit o’snark from MoDo?

The administration is trying to throw journalists in jail and basically trying to replace the whole press crew with ringers, including male escorts.