Bush and Putin

There is a 13-year-old still inside of me that smiles whenever he thinks that the leaders of two of the most powerful countries on Earth are named Bush and Putin (Pootin').

Whenever I look at Putin, I'm kind of glad he's not the one who was looking over the desk at us during the cold war. He looks cold. Like a Terminator. Like he doesn't have the same emotions as you or me. Like it would mean all the same to him to shake your hand or remove your eye with a caviar spoon. Nor would he think twice about sending 10,000 nukes at various targets in America.

Is there such a thing as a caviar spoon? Or do you use a fork?

And whenever Bush and Putin get together, it's like some ill-conceived buddy comedy.

This isn't at all like Clinton and Yeltsin. I just remember the footage from a tape they advertised called "Presidential Bloopers," and it's Clinton and Yeltsin standing shoulder to shoulder, laughing their asses off at something (I believe a photographer had back into a fountain, and fallen in, but I don't remember for sure).

But Putin looks like if he still carries a length of piano wire in the sleeve of his coat. And at some point, Bush is talking (and talking and talking...about strategery), and Putin pulls the piano wire from his coat. An aide stops Putin just as he's gotten behind Bush, and is preparing to put the piano wire around Bush's throat.