"The Greatest Geopolitical Catastrophe"

... of the 20th Century would be, in Vladimir Putin's estimation, the crumbling of the USSR. This transcript from Meet the Press, 27 February 2005, has Tim Russert and journalist Maureen Dowed talking about the phone call between Bush and Putin when Putin called Bush to congratulate him on his second term (halfway down):

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, Mr. Putin responded by talking about the Electoral College, suggesting to President Bush that "The majority of American voters in 2000 may have voted for the Democratic candidate, but you became president," trying to have some kind of comparability between American democracy and so-called Russian democracy?

MS. MAUREEN DOWD: Well, the subtext of the press conference was fascinating, because when Putin said that, what he was really saying was, "Look, your daddy's friends on the Supreme Court made you president, and the guy who won the most votes didn't, so don't tell me I shouldn't be appointing governors instead of letting them be elected." And on this trip, Bush learned the old Murray Kempton thing about "the evil of lesser evilism," because I was with him in 2002 when he met Putin, and he was so happy to get to Putin after being condescended to by Chirac and Schroeder, and he thought he had a soul mate and a pal, and he called him--"Puty-Put" and "Ostrich Legs" were his nicknames for Putin. And he thought that the former evil empire would help him with the axis of evil and the evildoers, but, you know, now the former evil empire is looking more evil.

It looks like Agent Ostrich Legs has used his State 'o' the Country address as a means of explanation: his media restrictions, wandering political fingers (the loser in the Ukraine presidential bid comes to mind), and internal political shenanigans are making more sense: Puty-Put is making the determined choice of regression, despite Condi's valiant attempts.