Creeping Coups and Cold War Chills

There's an interesting article in Al Jazeera that isn't getting any press over here, as far as I can tell: today, Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain introduced a resolution urging President George Bush to take action to suspend Russia's G8 membership. McCain said that he warned back in 2001 that there was a "creeping coup" against democracy and capitalism going on in Russia, and now he says, "the coup is no longer creeping--it is galloping." This comes ahead of a Bush-Putin summit next week. So if the Senators are right, is suspending Russia's G8 membership the right way to begin confronting the issue? If Putin is becoming a dictator, what should we do?

Meanwhile, the Russian press is not being kind to Bush at all. The front page of Pravda features an editorial that suggests that Bush and Putin are no longer pals. This is one of the most strident things I've read outside of Al Jazeera. I quote:

"Several years ago, if someone had said that a state could perpetrate an act of mass murder in which tens of thousands of civilians were butchered, invade a sovereign nation using a casus belli based upon barefaced lies and forgery of documents and whose military forces could commit acts of rape, bullying, sodomy and sexual depravity on a shocking scale and then go on to commit acts of torture, one might have wondered whether such a report came from the annals of the Inquisition or Ancient Rome. [...]

George W. Bush, his administration and the Armed Forces of the United States of America are hereby accused formally of crimes against International Humanitarian Law. Is the world going to stand by as it did in the 1930s, allowing Hitler to try to dominate the planet? Or are those people who studied law going to do something about it in the proper forums of law? How about making a 'citizens arrest' of George W. Bush if he dares to step off an aircraft anywhere outside the USA?"

Anyone feel a cold war chill coming on again?