After a busy day of encouraging democratic protesters in Lebanon and beyond; condemning despot regimes in Syria and Iran; sifting through increasingly obsequious messages from North Korea; and gladhanding a pouty Europe, practically getting a purr out of Paris' French cat Jacques Chirac; President Bush finished with an after-dinner censure of the fascistic Vladimir Putin, not three days before his meeting with the Russian strongman.
All that, and observers are left nodding, "yes, that he did."
When did an American president wield so much political capital? 1944? 1797?