■"Bush and Putin Exhibit Tension Over Democracy: An Awkward Appearance; Two Sides Announce Deal to Reduce Threat of Nuclear Terrorism," by Elisabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger, New York Times, 25 February 2005, p. A1.

■"Bush, Putin Take Cooperative Tack As WTO Beckons," by Christopher Cooper and Gregory L. White, Wall Street Journal, 25 February 2005, p. A3.

■"What About Democracy? Leaders Mute Difference, Latching On to the Affirmative: Some see Bush ceding an opportunity to challenge Putin," by C.J. Chivers, New York Times, 25 February 2005, p. A10.

■"Russian Ex-Premier May Challenge Putin in '08: Kasyanov Denounces Path Taken by Kremlin, Implores Democratic Forces to Unite," by Guy Chazan and Gregory L. White, Wall Street Journal, 25 February 2005, p. A17.

■"In Putin's Backyard, Democracy StirsóWith U.S. Help: Before Kyrgyzstan Elections, Western-Backed Groups Offer Aid to Opposition," by Philip Shishkin, Wall Street Journal, 25 February 2005, p. A1.

I'm really beginning to feel that the WSJ not only outperforms the NYT on economics, but increasingly on security as wellóespecially when the New Core is involved. The WSJ seems to contextualize security within the "everything else" of globalization much better than the NYT does, as the Grey Lady seems fixated on always making Bush look bad. The collection of stories on the summit and Russia today bear this out.

As far as the NYT is concerned, the summit was a big nothing, with just a face-saving announcement on preventing nuclear terrorism. If anything, the summit highlighted the growing tensions between the two powers, and the hypocrisy of Bush's focus on freedom. Oh yeah, and Bush missed a big opportunity to slap Putin publicly over recent retrenchment there. Of course, the NYT fields some foreign policy experts to make all these points. In the view of the NYT, this is all that happened.

The WSJ's headline cites a very different subject:

In exchange for Mr. Bush's backing of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, Mr. Putin agreed to begin a cooperative program to secure his country's nuclear arsenal and "improve the transparency of the business and investment environment" in the wake of his government's seizure and sale of oil giant OAO Yukos last year Ö

Mr. Bush has said Russia's entry into the WTO will make the country more democratic, because it would force Moscow to adopt economic changes and strengthen its commitment to the rule of law. The agreement the two men signed calls for Russia's entrance this year. A final agreement between the two countries would be a major boost for Mr. Putin's long-running drive to join the international trading body and a chance for the Kremlin to show it isn't backing away from the open, market-oriented economic policies Mr. Putin says he supports. The U.S. is the last major trading partner Russia needs to deal with before it can enter the WTO.

This is a huge issue and this was significant movement, and amazingly the NYT doesn't mention the WTO agreement whatsoever in all its coverage. Stunning, isn't it?

Everyone knows what a huge impact China's joining the WTO in 2001 has had on its economic reform trajectory, and so getting Russia into the organization is a logical focus for the Bush administrationóespecially as it's focused on encouraging freedom and democracy there. I mean, are we supposed to demand democracy before truly free markets? Instead of seeing this larger progress, all we get from the NYT is "loose nukes."

You don't grow the Core with interdiction. You grow it with connectivity. Having Russia join the WTO is a very big step in this regard. The WSJ sees this. The NYT does not.

Two other WSJ stories show off the paper's sense of the larger picture. The first one highlights a rising former premier who's likely to challenge whomever Putin puts up to succeed him in '08 (yes, that headline is a bit weird, because Putin can't run again).

Kasyanov was premier from 2000 to 2004, and those were pretty good years economically for Russia. Yes, on his watch much of the retrenchment began, and about a year ago he was fired by Putin. Now he's firing back, making the "smooth and telegenic" Kasyanov appear to many observers as perhaps the second coming of Viktor Yushschenko, "another former prime minister who was sacked, headed the opposition, and ended up as president in neighboring Ukraine."

So, despite all the hand-wringing by all our former experts on the former Soviet Union, political analysts in Moscow are already opining that "Russia's political class feels the beast is weakening."

Meanwhile, Russia gets closer to joining the WTO.

Second story shows yet again how, if Putin is such a hard-liner imperialist, he sure does a rotten job of disconnecting the former Soviet republics from the outside world. Here the article lists how four big DC/NYC-based Non-Governmental Organizations are meddling all over the dial in the former USSR, pushing reforms and helping opposition candidates in the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia, the Caucasus, and all the Central Asian statesóbasically everywhere in the former Soviet Union plus Russia itself. One of these groups is George Soros' family foundation. Behind much of this activity lies the U.S. State Department, doing something it knows well how to do (i.e., work with states that are largely stable).

So look at it from Putin's perspective: former Soviet republics with meddling Westerners messing with the political process while NATO and the EU invite several toward memberships. And we're surprised that sometimes he gets surly on camera? Or that his government retrenches here and there? Good God! Short of just dismantling all power in the Kremlin, what are we supposed to expect of the man? Sure, he's got a long way to go, but remember how far Russia has come and remember all that Russia's given up without firing a shot. The man, quite frankly, puts up with crap from us that we'd never take from anybodyóno matter what our circumstances. Here, the Europeans are correct: show some patience. Russia belongs in the Core, and Russia's in the Coreóeven if the NYT seems oblivious to all this "news."